Source:

December 17, 2009 17:10 IST

W ith officials holding out little hopes for a comprehensive climate deal, India on Thursday said a handful of developed countries led by British Premier Gordon Brown were working out a surprise political text.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said these leaders were reluctant to reveal anything and that was 'most baffling' and 'mischievous'.

He said no developing country was involved in the drafting of the text and there is great concern that it will be sprung up as a surprise at the heads of state level talks where it is difficult to counter and oppose the contents.

He said if thrown up as a surprise text, there will be very little time to go through it and it can also be the cause of great embarrassment.

"We don't know the context of the text. The continued reluctance of the Danes to reveal the political outcome is most baffling," Ramesh said.

However, most of the officials are pinning their hopes of a last minute breakthrough on heads of state and government who started pouring into the Danish capital.

"All along the objective was to delay delay and delay. What has happened in this COP is unprecedented in global negotiations and it really is most disappointing for India and other countries. It is wrong, it is mischievous... We want to be constructive," he added.

The discussion on the two negotiated texts resumed last evening after a 12-hour delay and the minister urged that serious negotiations take place through the day.

"I am still hopeful that during the course of the day we might be able to salvage something," he said, but also expressed concern that the developed countries would try to block and slow down the process as much as possible.

The Minister reiterated that the industrialised nations were focused on killing the Kyoto Protocol and that it remained in the "intensive care unit" but the developing countries planned to get negotiations started on the two texts that have 'legitimacy' in the next two-three months.

The Minister noted that India's priority should be on its national programmes to combat climate change.

"I have been stating for months we need a domestic agenda to combat climate change...This is one lesson we can learn from China but takes strong domestic mitigation also,"he said.

The Minister pointed out that a positive outcome was that "solidarity between BASIC countries had become a reality" but the "blame game would soon be underway".

"We are aware that the Western countries propaganda to hold developing countries responsible. We have gone out of our way to bring negotiations back on track," Ramesh said.

"The way the negotiations are gone the entire process is flawed and the trust deficit has accumulated. No sincere effort has been made by Denmark to reduce the deficit," he added.