Durban: Brazil and South Africa on Friday indicated joining a new climate pact proposed by the EU for a legally binding treaty for all parties to be signed by 2015, even as India, China and the US are still to come on board, Europe said on Friday.
European Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said the two countries rallied to the proposal supported by the EU, vulnerable small-island states and least-developed countries.
"Brazil (is) also in favour, South Africa OK for a legally binding deal," she told.
"That is half of BASIC, now we are waiting for the other half," she added, referring to India and China, the first and third largest carbon polluters in the world.
These two Asian giants along with the number two emitter the US, have not endorsed the European proposal for a mandate for a new accord embracing all major carbon emitters.
If the European Union Roadmap is agreed to in Durban, it will be a critical step in dissolving the developed and developing countries classification, which has been central to the climate change regime since the first legally binding treaty was signed in 1997.
The EU is proposing a legally binding treaty for all parties to be signed by 2015 and which will come into force by 2020. The EU wants all major emitters including India, China and the US to take legally binding carbon emission cuts.
So far, South Africa and Brazil have indicated that they are willing to sign up to such a treaty. "We tried to chart a pathway to change something that has not changed in many many years," said Hedegaard.
"Namely the division of the world into two camps, the two camps that were decided in the last century in 1992 and 1997," she told reporters. "Obviously what these parties will do can vary but we all commit to the same legal form."
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