AS crucial climate talks begin in Durban, attention is focused on the likely role of the major country groupings. The outcome of the UN climate conference will be largely decided by the interplay of forces between the Basic (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) group formed two years ago, the EU, and the umbrella group of developed countries, led by the US and comprising Russia, Japan, Canada, Australia and others who oppose legally binding climate commitments.

For the first of these groups three issues are critical: the pressure on members to undertake binding obligations in the near future (which it opposes because of its developing world status); the fate of the Kyoto protocol, the world’s only effective legal agreement on climate; and the performance of the developed states of the global north regarding their pledges to finance the south’s climate actions.

All the Basic countries’ greenhouse emissions are growing much faster than the world’s — in fact about five times faster in China and India. But China is far more industrialised than the others, and in a different economic league. Its per-capita carbon emissions are close to western Europe, and South Africa’s are even higher. But India’s and Brazil’s emissions are low, and comparable to those of the world’s poorest countries.

Brazil and South Africa say they could accept binding obligations in return for finance. South Africa as conference host is expected to work for Durban’s success, even if that means eroding the group’s solidarity. Pressure is growing for the group to accept obligations identical to those imposed on the north. China and India responded to such pressure in 2009 by voluntarily pledging to reduce the emissions intensity. But the global north, responsible for 75 per cent of accumulated CO2 emissions, has made far less substantial pledges than the south, which is least responsible for climate change but whose people are the most at risk.

The EU has linked it to another hypersensitive issue on which Durban could founder, the Kyoto protocol. The EU initially played a positive role in the climate talks but has since turned conservative.— The Guardian, London