'Copenhagen could mean end of Kyoto' TNN 28 December 2009, 02:55am ISTText Size:|Topics:India Saran Copenhagen Kyoto NEW DELHI: Prime Minister's special envoy on climate change Shyam Saran on Sunday admitted in a TV interview that the Copenhagen Accord that India Twitter Facebook Share Email Print Save Comment negotiated at the recently concluded climate talks has left a window open for the burial of Kyoto Protocol. Developing countries have been fighting for the past two years with the rich nations in order to get them to take emission reduction targets under the second phase of Kyoto Protocol to begin in 2013. But the industrialized countries, many of whom seem off track to meet their targets even in the first phase, have been insisting that the protocol be done away with entirely. Many had earlier warned that Copenhagen Accord, with India as one of the key negotiators at Danish capital along with US, China, Brazil and South Africa, only deferred the battle over the protocol and not secured its future. Saran admitted so much in the interview. "It opens a window — and that possibility is there — of course. But that depends on how we take negotiations forward. What I am trying to point out is that in a sense we have agreed that we will live to fight another day," he said. On the volatile issue of scrutiny of self-funded domestic actions of the Indian government to reduce emissions, the envoy differed a bit from environment minister Jairam Ramesh, the head of the Indian delegation at Copenhagen. When asked if the reference by the minister in Parliament that the Copenhagen Accord only permitted something akin to consultations of actions under IMF rules, Saran said, "I think there is no replication of what happens under the IMF in this particular case (of climate change actions)." He added, "There is a certain similarity in terms of what we agree to do here and with the kind of consultations we have under the IMF or WTO. That is what he (the minister) said." The UPA had earlier come under fire from both the right and the Left in the Opposition for allowing "analysis and consultation" under the accord of its domestic actions. While the government had defended its deviation from its red lines with the excuse that enough caveats for safeguard had been placed in the new pact.