BASIC Group Ministers Call for Additional Meetings Before Mexico
24 January 2010: The second meeting of Ministers of the four BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) Group countries took place in New Delhi, India, on 24 January 2010. In a joint statement issued at the conclusion of the meeting, the Ministers re-emphasized their commitment to working together with all other countries to ensure an agreed outcome at the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP 16), which will take place in Mexico at the end of 2010.
They underscored the centrality of the UNFCCC process and reiterated that all negotiations must be conducted in an inclusive and transparent manner. The Ministers called on the COP 15 President (Denmark) to convene meetings of the Ad hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the UNFCCC (AWG-LCA) and the Ad hocWorking Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) in March 2010, and to ensure that the AWGs meet at least five times before the Mexico Conference.
They underscored their support for the Copenhagen Accord, developed during COP 15, while underlining the importance of the Accord as representing a high-level political understanding among the participants on some of the contentious issues of the climate change negotiations. They expressed the hope that this would facilitate the two-track process of negotiation under the Bali Roadmap to lead to a successful conclusion of ongoing negotiations in Mexico. The Ministers expressed their intention to communicate information on their voluntary mitigation actions to the UNFCCC by 31 January 2010. They also called for the early flow of the pledged US$10 billion in 2010, with a focus on the least developed countries, small island developing States and African countries.
The Ministers agreed to meet at the Ministerial level every quarter, and welcomed the offer of South Africa to host the next meeting of the BASIC Ministerial Group in late-April 2010. [The Joint Statement]