NEW YORK: India will submit “comprehensive and balanced” Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) on reducing emissions next week to coincide with the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar has said.
“If human intervention has caused climate change, then human instinct and intelligence will bring out solutions,” Javadekar told.
India will submit its INDCs in Bonn on October 1 and will declare it in New Delhi, just in time for the deadline for nations to submit their commitments and coinciding with Gandhi’s anniversary.
Javadekar said Gandhi, along the first thinkers on environment, keenly talked about conservation lifestyle and sustainable development and practices.
“India’s INDCs will be comprehensive, balanced and ambitious enough. We are covering mitigation, adaptation and finance technology,” he said.
He said that India’s action will reflect on all fronts including increasing renewables, lowering emission and energy intensity, building resilience capacity in states, having more carbon sync, development of newer technologies and capacity building of vulnerable countries and Least Developed Countries.
He said that India wants to be a part of the solution to climate change.
Javadekar earlier attended a high-level luncheon meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on climate action attended by other heads of state and Foreign Ministers including US Secretary of State John Kerry and French President Francois Hollande.
Javadekar said climate finance will be key to the success of the Paris summit in December on driving at a climate change agreement.
He added that Hollande has warned developed world that unless they fullfill their commitment of finance, the Paris talks can fail also.
“I complimented him for that warning and said very clearly that finance has to be essentially public finance or non-profit private finance,” he said adding that the seven billion people of the world want some kind of moving forward in climate negotiations.
He said the cost of climate action is not just 100 billion dollars but trillions of dollars and “I cannot make my poor to pay more than his share.”
Javadekar said India will also require climate financing and even though it has 17 per cent of the world population, it is not demanding 17 billion dollars every year from the 100 billion dollars climate fund.
“We will definitely require funds but we are fighting the finance cause for least developed countries and small island developing nations,” he said.
He said the developed world had committed to contributing to the climate fund and the Paris talks can be in jeopardy if this issue is not resolved.
“In a way, the money (for the climate fund) is reparation. If today the world is suffering the effects of climate change, experiencing high temperatures rise, it is not my fault.
“It’s the developed world who have done this. We are the sufferers (of climate change) and are vulnerable countries. Climate finance must be in a way aid to the developing world,” he added.
On the focus on “climate justice” by Modi in his speech at the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Javadekar said justice does not mean developing and least developed countries need only finance.
“They also need technology to meet the challenges so that their lives are not threatened,” he said.
“Historically the (developed nations) are responsible but the poor countries and the poorer sections within those countries suffer the most,” he said.
“Poor people are at the receiving end of climate change. They need climate justice,” he said adding that climate justice also provides an arrangement based on equity and common but differentiated responsibilities, respective capacity based on rules and gives equitable space for growth.
He stressed that poverty eradication, reaching energy to every house and putting everyone on a growth path are the main priorities for India and for this there has to be creation of jobs and many other challenges will also have to be addressed.
“To that end, our emissions will grow but we will be more efficient. It will not be business as usual,” he said adding that emphasis will be on efficiency in India’s INDCs. (AGENCIES)
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel