Delays By Cabinet On Major Decisions Led To Confusion Cancun: The Indian team in Mexico carried on their business for a week at the climate negotiations without a clear mandate from the government. Till a day before the ministerial round of talks were to begin, on Monday, the team had not got the final Cabinet decisions on climate negotiations. Before each crucial climate talks, the Cabinet considers and clears a set of red lines (non-negotiables) for the negotiators to stick to at global meetings where almost each word is fought over by more than 190 countries in an attempt to safeguard their national interests even as they work to find a solution to climate change. It was only on Thursday, even as negotiations were on in Cancun, that the Cabinet actually took a call on the issue and deliberated on what its team should be allowed to negotiate and what they should not offer to the other countries as part of any bargain. But till Monday, the negotiating team at Cancun had not received the final orders from the government. While many of the fundamental non-negotiables such as India not signing on to any form of international emission reduction targets remain same through the years, the Copenhagen Accord and the series of negotiations after that have opened up several issues on which the government needed to clear its stance. One of the most crucial decisions the Cabinet was expected to take was whether to turn environment minister Jairam Ramesh