BASIC nations face emission plan deadline

NEW DELHI, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Brazil, South Africa, India and China have agreed to a U.N. deadline to submit their voluntary carbon emission control plans by month's end, officials said.

In the agreement reached at a meeting in New Delhi, Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh pledged the collective support of the group known as the BASIC nations to the "Copenhagen Accord."

China reportedly would keep an "open attitude" about the disputes within the scientific community over the underlying cause of global warming, the Financial Times reported Monday.

"There is a view that climate change is caused by cyclical trends in nature itself," Xie Zhenhua, the Chinese representative told a news conference in New Delhi. "We have to keep an open attitude."

He was later quoted as saying while global warming is a "solid fact" affecting developing countries, there were still "uncertainties" over its cause.

The issue has come up after Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, admitted the IPCC's 2007 claim that Himalayan glaciers could disappear within three decades was "an error." But Pachauri also noted the reality of global warming could not be ignored.

The BASIC agreement on submitting their plans to the United Nations is a follow up to the December Copenhagen summit when countries were given until January to submit their national goals on specific targets.

The Times said their decision to meet the deadline will help put the troubled negotiations back on track.

India's Ramesh also called on developed countries to speed up their pledges to give $10 billion to the most vulnerable countries to cope with global warming, the Financial Times said.