India will host the next meeting of BASIC Environment Ministers. The
meeting will be held in Chennai on February 15-16, 2013. This was stated
by Smt. Jayanthi Natarajan, Minister for Environment & Forests
while briefing the media here today.
The BASIC countries (also Basic countries or BASIC) are a bloc of four large developing countries – Brazil, South Africa, India and China – formed by an agreement on 28 November 2009. The four committed to act jointly at the Copenhagen climate summit, including a possible united walk-out if their common minimum position was not met by the developed nations.
Smt. Natarajan said that BASIC Group is a platform of the four
countries for coordination on issues related to climate change. BASIC
has emerged as an important grouping in the climate change negotiations,
and has acted as a key voice of developing countries.
BASIC countries meet four times in a year and once a year in each of
the four countries by rotation. Typically, the first meeting of the year
takes place in India.
At the Chennai meeting, the BASIC Ministers are expected to review the
decisions taken at Doha and plan the future steps for taking the global
process for an ambitious and equitable agreement under Durban Platform,
she added.
The important issues that will engage the attention of the BASIC
Ministers are principles under the Durban Platform, the role and
relevance of independent international initiatives including sectoral
actions in promotion and achievement of global ambition, and the steps
needed to ensure means of implementation to parties for enhancing their
efforts.
Agenda for the meetings is being finalised and will be shared in due
course. The meeting of Ministers will be preceded by a meeting of their
experts and negotiators.
Smt. Natarajan further stated that in line with the BASIC
Plus approach, representatives of other important members of G-77 and
China have also been invited. Bhutan (SAARC and Mountain), Mali (LDC
and Africa), Argentina (Latin America), Fiji (G-77 Chair), Nauru (SIDS)
and Qatar (CoP-18 Presidency) have been invited.
India is a member of like minded developing countries who are meeting
in Geneva on 27-28 February, 2013 to review the decisions at Doha and
plan the future steps.
The deliberations in the BASIC meeting will help India and other BASIC
countries in formulating their approach to the future issues in the
negotiations and plan help build ambitious and equitable architecture
for post 2020 arrangements.
RM/RS
(Release ID :92024) |
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