GLASGOW: With COP26 heading for final day without taking definite call on key issues including climate finance and market-based mechanism for carbon reduction (carbon market), a climate negotiation group of 22 countries including India and China – known as Like Minded Developing Countries () – on Thursday called the Conference presidency not to adopt “mitigation centric approach” by keeping 1.5 degree Celsius goal alive as a “collective responsibility” of all nations in the Glasgow decision text, and requested him to “completely remove paragraph on mitigation” in the revised text.
The paragraph on mitigation in the text, which is to be finalised only after consensus, includes language on collectively trying to limit global warming to 1.5 degree C above pre-industrial level (1850-1900), as opposed to the target under the Paris Agreement which put 2 degree C as upper limit while keeping 1.5 degree C as merely an aspirational goal.

The text also asked for commitments from 196 countries to boost their climate targets by 2023 to keep the warming limit goal of 1.5 degree Celsius alive and to submit by next year their long term decarbonisation strategies to be on a promised net-zero trajectory.
The LMDC group including India, China, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bolivia and Indonesia, however, strongly objected to it and termed the move as ‘carbon colonialism’.
“Developed countries are pushing this narrative of 1.5 degrees Celsius very hard. We know that this narrative will lead them to control the world once again. And those countries that are not able to achieve the net zero targets by 2050, they will be ethically and financially condemned. That is unfair. That is against climate justice,” said Diego , Bolivia’s lead negotiator, who represents the LMDC group.
Speaking on behalf of the group at a press conference, he said, “We request developed countries to achieve real reduction of emissions immediately and by 2030, within this decade. They cannot take targets very distant in the future…We as LMDC do not accept that this will be a scenario for transferring historical responsibility to the developing countries”.
The LMDC members also expressed the need for higher mobilisation of finance from the developed countries instead of trying to change the narrative towards mitigation and 2050 ‘net zero’ goal which, the group thinks, is against the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibility () and respective capabilities (RC) as enshrined in the UN Convention and the Paris Agreement.
“We are not going to accept any changes in the principle of CBDR. There should be differentiation. There should be recognition for CBDR in the negotiation process. And there should also be recognition of the pre-2020 ambition gap. So, if we are going to accept net zero by 2050 for all countries then the developing countries would be trapped in a very unjust way of addressing climate change,” said Pacheco.
The group noted that if it accepts the text on mitigation in the current form, the developing countries will be trapped in that narrative because they will never be able to achieve the targets that the Presidency is setting for the entire world as the Glasgow decision.
“We need to fight the developed world against this carbon colonialism. It is very risky for our countries and completely ignores that there are historical responsibilities,” said the Bolivian negotiator.
The LMDC, meanwhile, appreciated the US and China deal even if it may add a new dynamic into the talks, raising questions over China’s role in the BASIC and LMDC alliances as many believe that Beijing extracted nothing for developing nations from the US unlike India which has consistently been raising the issue of climate finance for the entire developing world.
Appreciating the US-China deal, Pacheco said the LMDC welcomed all the arrangements in order to improve national efforts to increase ambition.