India to Host 14th BASIC Meeting in Chennai, 15-16 Feb., 2013

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. 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.