Humanity faces a profound emergency due to climate change. Unless we combine to take decisive action based on mutual sacrifice, climate change will ravage our planet, our prosperity and security. The Arctic ice-caps are melting, and last year's inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of failure havoc. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other, but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics.

This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone. The science is complex, but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rise to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C - the smallest increase we can prudently expect to following action - would perch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, millions of people would be displaced, entire nations drowned by the sea. Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polish treaty, real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US obstructionism.

Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of Americans’ domestic politics. But the politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree on the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June's UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline. As one negotiator put it, “We can go into extra time but cannot afford to replay." At the deal's heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world, covering how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided and how we will share a newly precious resource : the trillion or so tonnes of carbon that we can emit before the mercury rises to dangerous levels.

Rich nations like to point to the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing giants such as China, India and so on, take more radical steps than they have so far. But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere - three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emitted since 1850. It must now take a lead, and every developed country must commit to deep cuts which will reduce its emissions within a decade to less than its 1990 level.

Developing countries can point out that they did not cause the bulk of the problem, and also that the poorest regions of the world will be the hardest hit. But they will increasingly contribute to global warming and must thus pledge meaningful and quantifiable action of their own. Though both fell short of what some had hoped for, the recent commitments to emissions targets by the world's biggest polluters - the United States and China - were important steps in the right direction.

Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs dip into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down - with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of "exported emissions", so that the burden can eventually be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them.

Fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it. The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance - and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing. Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. Already some countries have recognised that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs and an improved quality of life. Overcoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over pessimism, of vision over short-sightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature."

The politicians, intellectuals and scientists in Copenhagen have the power to shape history's judgement on this generation - one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it.

Developed countries continue to insist that developing countries, especially the first growing ones like India and China, must accept binding emission reduction targets. But the developed(rich) countries loath to make any commitments on even technology transfers, let alone the hundreds of billions of dollars in funds that developing countries will need to take climate change mitigation and adaptation actions if they are to slow carbon emissions.

Delegates from 192 countries began a two-week long conference at Copenhagen on Monday to arrive at a new global treaty on climate change. The first serious world-wide response to climate change was the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Among other things, it established the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC) which came into being in 1994,with some 192 countries as members.

In 1997,the UNFCCC spawned the Kyoto Protocol, which was aimed at curbing greenhouse gas(GHS) emissions. Under the Kyoto Protocol, the industrialised countries agreed to binding commitments to reduce their combined emissions below 1990 levels. Developing countries did not undertake binding obligations. But Kyoto Protocol had a big hole - the US, the world's biggest emitter of GHS's refused to be part of it. Moreover, it took eight years to come into force and it will soon expire in 2012. In effect, then, it has done nothing to reverse climate change, certainly not enough to avoid the feared adverse effects.

Governments are now looking for a comprehensive and global climate agreement to curb GHG emissions and restrict the rise in average global temperature by 2050 to no more than 2 degrees centigrade over what prevailed in the pre-industrial Age. The Copenhagen summit, officially called COP 15 and coming at the end of two years of multiple interim meetings and action plans, was meant to be the culmination of negotiations and to draw up a new treaty to deal with climate change.

Developing countries want developed ones to transfer to them technologies along with finance that will help with adaptation and mitigation. For instance, the latest renewable energy technologies are more efficient manufacturing technologies to reduce the effects of the climate change. Developing countries also want the rich countries to fund their adaptation and mitigation programmes, such as for building sea walls and for adopting new, greener technologies, as well as to absorb the high costs of moving their economies to low-carbon paths.

The world is waiting for the US to come forward with an emissions reduction targets and to contribute international financial support to help developing countries adopt to the impact of climate change. Two sets of decisions may happen in Copenhagen Summit: one set basically putting in place a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, the only legally-binding instrument that encompasses targets for industrialised countries, and refining the rules in a number of areas; and the second set of decisions that will constitute a much more comprehensive agreement bringing the US on board, lists targets from other industrialised countries, makes it clear what the major developing nations will do to limit the growth of their emissions, and puts in place the immediate financial and institutional infrastructure to deliver and make that possible.

The status of Kyoto Protocol remains an issue. A number of developed countries continue to insist that there should be a single legal instrument which incorporates the mitigation obligations of both developed and developing countries. This matter could become a major issue at Copenhagen since developing countries have rejected the idea of abandoning the Kyoto Protocol. While the developed countries are required under the Kyoto Protocol, to take on economy-wide legally-binding emission reduction targets, there is no such obligation on developing countries.

Nevertheless, as a contribution to the Copenhagen process, India has announced, as a purely voluntary measure, to reduce the emission intensity of its GDP by 20-25 per cent by 2020.India and other developing countries will continue to push for a comprehensive, balanced and equitable outcome at Copenhagen. There is still negotiating time available to us at COP15, which we will use to promote an outcome that meets the expectations of the developing countries. If the west cannot pay, then it cannot call the shots. The U.S has to sacrifice a lot, as it remains the No 1 emitter of GHG emissions and also the No 1 powerful country in the world.

The Copenhagen summit is to prevent dangerous global warming, and for countries to stop the growth in greenhouse gas emission. Who should make the cuts? Industrialised nations such as the US, UK, Japan and others have emitted by far more carbon, and still continue to emit vast amounts per person, so these countries have a responsibility to make the deeper cuts.

However, emissions from emerging economies such as China and India are surging, and any global limit on emissions needs to be applicable to these nations too. Yet per person, these nations have small carbon footprints and millions of people in deep poverty - 400 million Indians live without electricity, for instance. So China, India, Brazil, South Africa and others can argue that they need to be allowed to continue to pollute for a while as they improve their citizens’ lives.

Balancing the responsibilities for cuts is a key part of the negotiations in Copenhagen. There is an argument that in the long term, a low-carbon economy will be cheaper than a fussil-fuelled one. But time is short and there will be costs in the near term. Everyone agrees that the poorer nations need urgent help. Citizens in places from Haiti to Sudan to Bangladesh have done virtually nothing to pollute the atmosphere, but are bearing the worst impacts of floods and droughts. Richer nations will need to pay billions from now - some call it reparation for damage to the earth's climate. It will also cost a lot to build the global clean energy infrastructure that is essential to staunch the carbon from the coal and gas power stations, a large contributor of global emissions.

For the first emerging economies such as India, the ideal is to skip the high-carbon growth phase entirely and go straight to renewables and perhaps nuclear power. EU has suggested that $100bn a year from 2020 would cover the global climate change bill. But estimates from development groups reach up to four times that amount. Finding a figure that all nations accept is the second key part of the negotiations. In theory, buying permits to pollute from those who can cut their emissions most cheaply is attractive - maximum bang for buck and a flow of cash to pay for investments. However, from one perspective, this kind of offsetting simply looks like paying poorer people to clear up the mess left by the rich, who can then continue to pollute.

Also, if carbon trading is to cut real emissions, the cap set in the market has to be tight, and to date, political imperatives have overridden those of the planet. Nevertheless, carbon trading will remain at the heart of any treaty sealed in Copenhagen, as it was in the Kyoto treaty.

About 40 per cent of all the carbon emitted by human activity has come from razing forests. Stopping deforestation, in principle, cheap and simple, does not cut them down. But paying people, via carbon credits - not to fell trees, soon becomes complex. Who really owns the trees? Were they going to be chopped down anyway? And how do you verify what actually happens? Finding a solution to these issues is one of the strongest hopes for the Copenhagen summit.

Poor countries could be paid for the first time to protect the forests they depend on. Many new jobs would be created. It could stimulate community forest management and eco-tourism. Protecting the forest would lead to better erosion control, water quality and biodiversity. Negotiations at the UN's climate summit in Copenhagen will use language that is full of technical jargon and confusing acronyms. Rising sea levels, increased droughts, floods and heat waves, and changing seasonal weather patterns mean that countries will have to adopt to protect ordinary citizens, businesses and infrastructure such as transportation, energy and water supply, to prevent the worst effects of climate change having an impact on the economy.

Adaptation is the term used to refer to such preparation and includes measures such as protecting coastal areas by building sea walls, reforestation to try to prevent flooding, increasing water conservation and changing crops to varieties that flourish in warmer climates. Mitigation simply means actions to reduce global warming, by cutting greenhouse gas emissions and protecting carbon sinks such as the Amazon rainforest which absorbs carbon dioxide.

Negotiations held in September in Barcelona were grim: all now acknowledge that no legal deal is possible in Copenhagen. If so, then a total collapse would leave 20 years of negotiations in tatters and the world unprotected against the ravages of global warming.

India announced 20 -25 per cent carbon emission cuts on the 2005 levels by 2020.This would be done through a series of measures including mandatory fuel efficiency standards for all vehicles, a compulsory green building code and switching over to clean coal technology. If nations arrived at a "comprehensive and equitable agreement," India would be willing to do more but only through voluntary measures. India would never agree to any legally binding emission cut or accept any agreement that stipulated a 'peaking' year to carbon emission. India would be willing to be a "little flexible" depending on the concessions it got for its mitigation action, by way of technology and finance from developed nations.

India's basic negotiating point is its low capita per income, but if India wants to lead the developing nations, we have to offer something during negotiations. India has always stood for a comprehensive equitable agreement. India would work overtime with like-minded countries like China, Brazil and South Africa, but in general, it has to engage with everyone else. Just because we are members of G-77, it does not mean we cannot talk to the U.S. and it also does not mean that we are selling the country. Between 1990 and 2005,emission intensity in the country has gone down by 17.6 per cent, even as the Gross Domestic Product(GDP) and the population went up. But this cannot be the only negotiating point. The GDP is low because the population is high. The country's biggest failure in the last 60 years has been that it could not control the birth rate.

The 12th Five-Year Plan of India would focus on a low-carbon strategy for economic growth. Based on the Planning Commission exercises during its Mid-Term Appraisal of the 11th Plan,  it is understood that the intensity could be reduced, though the greenhouse gas emission would continue to increase. India is not ready to subject its domestically funded mitigation action to international review. Copenhagen must fail. James Hansen, world's leading climate change expert, says summit talks are so flawed that a deal would be a disaster. The scientist who convinced the world to take notice of the looming danger of global warming says it would be better for the planet and for future generations if next week's Copenhagen climate change summit ended in collapse.

In an interview with the Guardian, James Hansen, the world's pre-eminent climate scientist said, any agreement likely to emerge from the negotiations would be so deeply flawed that it would be better to start again from scratch. The developed countries who have drafted the report for Copenhagen summit want to continue more or less with business as usual, and the developing countries that want the money can get it through offsets (sold through the carbon markets).

Had America been supportive of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which views the heating of the earth's surface in a given theoretical framework that assigns differing roles to industrialised and developing countries, and prescribed for two sets of countries different action trajectories to mitigate the global emission of carbon dioxide, the world would have breathed easy as climatic dislocations and disjunctions caused by the ever rising volume of greenhouse gases pose a direct threat to human life.

Instead, America did the opposite and began to question the science that posited climate change. The net result is that the basics of the Kyoto Protocol are at risk of being overturned or seriously modified by leading western powers. In the event, the positions adopted by India and China - two rapidly industrialising developing countries - in Copenhagen, are likely to have a shaping influence on the course of the climate negotiations in future, although the two are not in an identical position.

Recently China had announced its proposal for 40 per cent reduction of emission intensity. If Kyoto is not jettisoned at Copenhagen, then industrialised countries can offer some assistance and India would be prepared to make deeper cuts in its emission intensity. The voluntary and unilateral actions of developing countries would have a positive hearing on arresting the rise of greenhouse gases, especially since China has now emerged as the world's leading polluter in absolute(as distinct from per capita) terms. Nevertheless, long-term impetus in deliberating climate change and mitigation strategies will be elusive if the U.S. does not pitch in with a meaningful contribution in Copenhagen.

Bali Action Plan 2007 succeeded in establishing a framework for negotiations to create an agreement that would replace the Kyoto Protocol. The final agreement reached by the international community in Bali, was labelled by COP president Witoelar in its closing statement as a "break-through".  At the end of the day, it may not represent what the EU has been asking for - namely a precise and concrete commitment to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions of 25 – 40 percent by 2020. But it still can be considered significant, as it signs the return of the US in the negotiating process for the first time after the withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol track on March 2001.

Still open and controversial is the question of how the requests of a more than ever fragmented international community will be combined in the near future. The Bali Action Plan did not introduce binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but included the request for developed countries to contribute to the mitigation of global warming in the context of sustainable development.

In addition, the Bali Action Plan envisaged enhanced actions on adaptation, technology development and on the provision financial resources, as well as measures against deforestation. The negotiation process is very complex and unless there is mutual sacrifice (give and take) between developing and developed countries, the 'Equitable Paradism' cannot be envisaged.

India has made it clear that it would not compromise on its stand on carbon emission cuts and would preserve its economic interest at all costs. India, along with China, Brazil and South Africa, has formulated a proposal to counter the new draft proposed by Denmark, which will host the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen on December 7. The Danish draft urges the world to adopt 2020 as the year when the emissions would peak, which India and other major emerging economies are strongly against.

The draft, which is not based on realistic estimation, is totally unacceptable. How can India accept a peaking year when its per capita emission is so low? Though deep cuts in global emissions will be required to achieve the ultimate objective of the summit, equitable sharing is inevitable in order to have a successful outcome. A shared vision for long term cooperative action, including a long term global goal for emission reductions, should be the aim of the summit. So far as the action on mitigation of climate change is concerned, a measurable, reportable and verifiable nationally appropriate mitigation commitments or actions, including quantified emission limitation and reduction objectives, by all developed countries can be taken into account.

Nationally appropriate mitigation actions by developing countries in the context of sustainable development can be supported and enabled by technology transfer, financing and capacity-building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner. Policy approaches and positive incentives on issues relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries can be taken up. The role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries can also be implemented. Various approaches can be made, including opportunities for markets to enhance the cost-effectiveness of, and to promote mitigation actions, bearing in mind different circumstances of developed and developing countries.

The people in the summit can contemplate over the following themes : " Ways to strengthen role of the summit in encouraging multilateral bodies, building on synergies among activities and process, as a means to support mitigation in a coherent and integrated manner; International cooperation to support urgent implementation of adaptation actions, including through vulnerability assessments, polarisation of actions, capacity-building and response strategies, integration of adaptation actions into sectoral and national planning, etc."

People of the summit should think of disaster reduction strategies, including risk sharing and transfer mechanisms. Enhanced action on the provision of financial resources and investment to support action on mitigation and adaptation and technology development and transfer should be discussed thoroughly in the summit. Innovative means of funding to assist developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change in meeting the cost of adaptation should be taken up in the summit.

Climate change is brought on unnaturally by greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, as a result of human actions. The global effect of the phenomenon depends on the volume of emissions and the future development emissions.

Climate change is a global problem and mitigation is strived at through various means. International cooperation is a focal factor in mitigating climate change. Kyoto Protocol set legally binding commitments for the industrial countries to lower overall emissions of six greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methene, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, HFCs, and PFCs) by altogether 5.2 per cent below the 1990 level during the years 2008 -2012. The negotiations are to be concluded in Copenhagen in December 2009.

The Kyoto Protocol covers more than 160 countries globally and over 55 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Some public policy experts who are sceptical of global warming see Kyoto as a scheme to either slow the growth of the world's industrial democracies or to transfer wealth to the third world, in what they claim is a global socialism initiative. They argue that the cost of compliance with Kyoto is prohibitive and ultimately outweighs any benefits that might result.

Others argue that the protocol does not go far enough to curb greenhouse emissions. Adaptation to climate change is vital in order to reduce the impacts of climate change that are happening now and increase resilience to future impacts. The Bali Action Plan ,adopted at COP 13 in Bali, December 2007, identifies adaptation as one of the five building blocks required(shared vision, mitigation, adaptation, technology transfer and financial resources) for a strengthened future response to climate change, to enable the full effective and sustained implementation of the Convention through long-term cooperative action, now, upto and beyond 2012.

The objective of the Nairobi work programme is to help all countries improve their understanding and assessment of the impacts of climate change, and to make informed decisions on practical adaptation actions and measures. The National Adaptation Programme of Action(NAPAS) provide an important way to prioritise urgent and immediate adaptation needs for least developed countries. The adaptation funds were established to finance concrete adaptation projects under Kyoto Protocol treaty, which is a legally binding agreement under which industrialised countries will reduce their collective emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2 percent.

Public policy plays a significant role in determining technology transfer. Rich countries have not transferred technology to combat global warming to India, as promised under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.Transfer of technologies and resources to enable developing countries to combat climate change remains a big challenge. As far as climate funds (resources) are concerned, rich countries have been hazy. The EU says developing nations would need 100 billion EUROs a year, but fail to set levels for Europe's contribution.

Climate change is becoming the pretext for pursuing protectionist policies under a green label. This would be contrary to the UNFCCC and violation of the WTO as well. Developing countries should strongly resist this at Copenhagen and should push for a global and a collective response and an ambitious, substantive and equitable outcome. They should resist a partial outcome and push for a legally binding instrument based on core principles of the UNFCCC and the 2007 Bali Action Plan.

It must be comprehensive in the sense that it must cover all the inter-related components of mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology, as a package deal and not as piecemeal. This means developed countries should resist a partial outcome.

Furthermore, there must be balance and equal priority given to each of the four components. Equity in all aspects should be at the centre of international negotiations on climate change. Equitable burden sharing paradism should be the slogan at Copenhagen. Rich countries are divided both in their offers for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and their enthusiasm for the approach, enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol for legally binding emissions targets backed by tough compliance mechanisms. The United States, the world's richest country and No.2 carbon emitter, remains outside the Kyoto framework and is pushing for an accord that would not have Kyoto's compliance teeth. The European Union, which saved Kyoto after the U.S. walkout in 2001,is unilaterally cutting its emissions by 20 percent by 2020.

The North's agenda is increasingly being driven by the climate laggards in their ranks. Australia (in denial of climate change until recently and as yet unable to get a carbon credit system going), South Korea, Japan and Canada have all been extremely active and often, quite obviously active in tandem with the U.S.

Most recently, the United States has been the moving spirit behind suggestions for an agreement at Copenhagen that will explicitly set aside - at one stroke - both the Kyoto Protocol and the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities." In this proposal put forward formally by the Danish Prime Minister, all countries would make their own commitments as they deemed appropriate, which would then be collected in one single document. Further negotiations would then take place to convert these commitments into a legally binding agreement. It is evident that this process would erase the difference between nations in terms of historical responsibility for emissions. There are further dangers if such an agreement is not effectively converted to a legally binding treaty.

The burial of legally binding commitments by developed nations would endanger the entire process of guaranteeing emissions reductions where they matter most. However, developing countries in need of financial assistance and technology would be held in their commitments, even beyond specific project-linked assistance. This would effectively shift the burden of legally binding commitments to the developing countries.

What is the minimum that India should insist on at Copenhagen? The first key issue is the preservation of the integrity, in substance, of the United Nations Framework convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol provides the only framework for mitigation action where developed nations have to take the lead and undertake legally binding commitments. India should unambiguously reject non-binding agreements of the kind suggested by the United States or variants that violate the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities."

Secondly, in line with Kyoto Protocol, the developed countries need to take the lead with specific quantitative commitments for emissions reductions (without carbon offsets) consistent with the recommendations of the IPCC (25-45 per cent reduction of annual emissions below 1990 levels by 2050). Developed countries outside the Kyoto Protocol need to be brought into the ambit of similar commitments by suitable means.

Thirdly, developing countries cannot be expected to favour only market solutions to a range of climate-related problems, including adaptation, mitigation, finance, and technology transfer. All nations have a right to the economic and social institutions of their choice to combat global warming. Fourthly, technology transfer needs to be led by state-level interventions and green technologies need to be treated as global public goods. Finance must also be primarily routed through multilateral institutions under the aegis of the UNFCCC. But we need to ensure that conditions for climate finance do not effectively become legally binding commitments for emission reductions.

As a quid pro quo to developed nations taking the lead, the large developing countries need to come on board with declared voluntary actions. Regrettably, in the run-up to Copenhagen, the strategy of the Government of India has been beset with confusion. India’s readiness to submit the outcomes of its domestic mitigation actions to "international consultations" has given rise to fresh concerns that India is going too far in accommodating the developed nations. But, now India on Sunday (29/11/2009), said that there was no question of taking any binding carbon emission cuts, indicating the coordinated approach major emerging economics including Beijing and New Delhi are likely to adopt at the climate change summit in Copenhagen.

China and India have agreed to reduce the energy intensity and then the carbon intensity of its future growth, which means its rate of emission will grow slower than it normally would. There is no pressure on India by developed countries, to take on legal emission cuts at the forthcoming meet. Instead, India was referred to various voluntary steps in terms of renewable energy or improvement in energy efficiency. These steps have actually added up to a very major contribution to the global efforts on mitigation.

As the New Year embraces us with first streaks of light on this new day marking the first day of a new decade, the second decade of the new millenium, let us begin with a prayer making Him central to our being. May we all seek the centre within us. For once the centre is found, you cannot be moved.

Just as a rose is framed in thorns, Genius is always fettered by mediocrity.

Happiness will almost always be mirrored by sadness.

Strength emerging through embracing weakness.

Victory invariably will be gained through defeat.

Excellence usually achieved simply through repetition.

Success can often only be realised through failure.

Pleasure is rarely distant from pain. In all of this there is balance to seek. Balance being the path to the centre. In the centre lies true harmony.

May His Grace Guide you to the centre!May 2010 be your defining year!

Happy New Year!