I have reached Cancun few hours’ back to attend the 16th Conference of Parties (CoP-16) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and have been greeted with news that can only be characterised as bad or worse.

The post-2012 emissions reduction commitments for Annex 1 countries under the Kyoto Protocol (KP) are presently going nowhere. Japan had fired the first salvo when in the opening plenary, it categorically stated its opposition to the second commitment period of KP. Now, countries like Australia, Canada, and some European nations have joined the chorus to disband KP.

The last two years have seen a flurry of reports that have projected the long-term greenhouse gas emissions trajectory of India, and how the country can go low-carbon and help solve the climate change crisis.

The recent controversy on the IPCC report regarding Himalayan glaciers has been all over the media.

For two years the world has negotiated for an equitable, ambitious and legally binding climate agreement on basis of the Bali Action Plan. And now we are being told that a legally binding agreement is not possible and that we should be happy with a political agreement/ statement at Copenhagen.