As negotiations on climate change gathered momentum at Copenhagen, India has said it will play a constructive role even as it slammed efforts of the developed world to make domestic emission cut commitments of developing nations legally binding and verifiable. India would not agree to the concept of "peaking" a clause incorporated in the first official draft which mandated developing nations to cap their emissions without any mention of a timeframe for that.

Peaking a clause would adversely impact the development of rural electricity in the country already facing a huge backlog in this area. While ruling out any dilution of the previously-stated "red lines" drawn by India, it can play a constructive, facilitative, leadership role to ensure an effective and equitable agreement. European Commission Director-General Karl Falkenberger said that the EU expected India, China and other emerging economies to report on their national mitigation programmes which would be incorporated in an international treaty. "We need them in a legally binding manner from everyone. Differentiated commitments, we can accept, but it has to be verifiable," he said.

The remarks drew objection from India, with senior negotiator Mr. Chandrasekar Dasgupta noting that Mr. Falkenberger's position fell short of climate justice. India and China should not expect any assistance from the industrialised world for undertaking mitigation and adaptation measures in their respective countries. Three years ago the industrialised nations in Port of Spain declared, that they were willing to spend $ 10 billion per annum on developing nations. In Copenhagen the money had shrunk to doling out $10 billion for three years.

India and China will be expected to draw money from the carbon trade, but even on that issue there is no clarity. The present carbon trade has been drawn out in the Kyoto Protocol. But if that will be trashed then there will be no incentive for developing countries. It is only if the carbon trade expands that the industries in the West will look for lower cost options in developing nations. But the carbon trade needs a legal basis from which it can draw its validity. India, Brazil and China want clarification on these issues based on Kyoto Protocol. On the other hand, US-led rich countries criticised a draft climate pact on Saturday (12/12/2009) for not making stronger demands on major developing countries, as environment ministers arrived in Copenhagen to ramp up the level of talks.

Initial reaction to the negotiating text submitted on Friday, underscored the split between the US-led wealthy countries and countries still struggling to overcome poverty and catch up with the modern world. US delegate Jonathan Pershing said the draft failed to address the contentious issues of carbon emissions by emerging economies."The current draft doesn't work in terms of where it is headed," Mr. Pershing said in the plenary, supported by European Union, Japan and Norway.

“All week we have heard a string of excuses from rich northern countries to make adequate reparations for the ecological crisis that they have caused," said Lidy Nacpil, of the Jubilee South Coalition. A new economic model is needed to replace 20th century industrialism, one that can cope with the billions of new consumers, exhausted ecosystems and an unstable climate. It can be done on an equitable basis, keeping in mind the interests of both rich and poor. But rich nations are not in a mood to reduce their emissions significantly, and also they hesitate to provide finance and technology to poor nations, not for charity, but for reparation to nature.

The rich were to deliver legally binding cuts amounting to 25 to 40 per cent of their Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at the 1990 levels by industrialised countries, by 2020.The rich people have to deliver close to $400 billion a year in assistance to developing countries for adaptation measures. The rich were also to deliver a mechanism to ensure free flow of the best clean technology to developing countries.

Kyoto Protocol requires industrialised countries to bring down their emissions to 5 per cent less than the 1990 levels and assist the developing countries. But US has not ratified that the Protocol Copenhagen climate change conference is being held to fix enhanced emissions reduction targets for rich countries during the second commitment period of the Kyoto protocol, which starts from 2012. This is because most countries have not even fulfilled their first commitment period targets.