India didn’t cause climate change: Prakash Javadekar

The Climate Action Summit will be hosted jointly by the UK COP26 Presidency along with the UN and France, in partnership with Italy and Chile. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, among other leaders, will address the summit via a video message.

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A day ahead of the meet, Javadekar said: “Historically it’s the developed countries that have been major contributors to carbon emissions with the United States with the highest historical emissions at 25 per cent, followed by the EU at 22 per cent and China at 13 per cent. Historically India has a low carbon emission contribution of only 3 per cent. Even presently, our carbon emissions remain restricted at 6.8 per cent of global emissions and the per capita emissions is only 1.9 tonnes per capita. Thus, our historic, as well as present contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, is low. Despite the fact that India has not been the reason for climate change, we have responsibly addressed the issue and have taken strong measures to curb our carbon emissions and to meet goals set by the Paris Agreement.”

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change and was adopted by 196 countries at COP21 in Paris in December 2015 with a goal to limit global warming to well below 2° Celsius, and preferably limit it to 1.5° Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.

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To achieve this long-term temperature goal, countries aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to achieve a climate-neutral world by mid-century.

Javadekar said that besides India, only Bhutan, the Philippines, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Morocco and Gambia were complying with the accord.

Currently, China has the highest greenhouse gas emissions (30 per cent) while the US contributes 13.5 per cent and the EU 8.7 per cent.

“Critically insufficient” countries with a 4 degrees Celsius increase include US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Ukraine. Other “insufficient countries” include China, South Korea and Japan.

The minister said India’s Nationally Determined Contributions lays down eight targets for 2021-2030 which include reduction of emissions intensity of GDP by 33-35% by 2030 over 2005 levels.