Cancun Agreements no substitute for Bali Road Map: BASIC

New Delhi, Feb 27 (PTI) Just months after the Cancuntalks, India and other BASIC nations today said that CancunAgreements were not a "substitute" for the Bali Road Map andpledged to make efforts to bring the issues charted out in itto the mainstream of global climate change negotiations.

"The Bali Road Map must, therefore, continue to be thetemplate for future work of the parties," said a jointstatement issued at a conclusion of sixth BASIC ministerialmeeting on climate change. BASIC is a bloc comprising Brazil,South Africa, India and China.

"There are a number of issues in the Bali Road Mapthat are not present in the Cancun Agreements (of Decemberlast year)and the BASIC Group of countries will make everyeffort to bring these issues back into the mainstream of theglobal climate change negotiations," Environment MinisterJairam Ramesh told reporters after the meeting.

He said the meeting has identified three particularissues-- Equity, Intellectual Property Rights and Trade.

"These are the three very important issues in theBASIC quartret and it will our endeavour to bring this andother Bali Road Map issues back into the mainstream of thenegotiating agenda," Ramesh said.

Explaining the details of negotiations, Ramesh said,"We need to continue the negotiations in 2011 leading up toDurban in a sprit of inclusiveness and transparency.

"Many issues on which we need further clarity. Twomost critical issues are of second commitment period of theKyoto protocol and the issue of Fast Track Finance," he said.

Zhenhua Xie, Chinese Vice Minister of the NationalDevelopment and Reform Commission and Special Representativeon Climate Change, said, "We are going to safeguard theinterests of developing countries to promote over all climatechange negotiations'' process.

"The BASIC group will play a very active andconstructive role in promoting over all process," he said.

Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Monica VieriaTeixeira said, "We will work together to support our agenda.

Next two years will be very cucial for sustainable developmentagenda."South Africa''s Environment Minister Bomo Edith EdnaMolewa said, "Regarding Agreements arrived at Cancun ouremphasis will be on the issues of finance, technology andcapacity building etc. We have to emphasis on finance to avoidsome challenges which might arise at Durban."India had invited representatives from three othercountries � Argentina, Algeria and Maldives �to the Delhimeeting as these countries represent important regional groupswithin the "G-77 and China" bloc in the climate changenegotiations.