New Delhi: With the small island countries and the least developed states veering towards the European line on climate change, the larger developing economies came together with African countries binding around the BASIC four — India, China, South Africa and Brazil — to demand that principles of equity and ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ be operationalized in the post-2020 climate regime.

CARBON emissions vary hugely between countries. That is well known, as is the finding that rich people emit more than poor ones. But a newly revised paper* by Emilio Zagheni of the Max Planck Institute in Rostock, Germany also shows how carbon footprints vary by age—and the worrying implications of this.

India cannot abandon equity. It’s that time of the year again. The developed and developing world are meeting for climate talks – and likely to stumble on fundamental differences. This time, the contentious issue is the EU’s cynical ditching of the Kyoto Protocol and insistence on starting on the draft of a new climate protocol in 2012 itself. India, along with other developing countries, objects to this shifting of goalposts by the EU. It wants the principles of equity as well as common but differentiated responsibilities to be recognised before a new protocol can be drafted.

New Delhi: In climate talks beginning on Monday in Bonn, India will oppose the EU’s move to start negotiations on the draft of a new climate protocol in 2012 itself. Considering it another shift in the goalpost by the Europeans, the Indian team of negotiators is expected to point out that no consensus was built at Durban last year that the only way forward is a new protocol that renders Kyoto Protocol redundant.