Bhupender Yadav welcomes IPCC report, says justifies India’s stand

“The IPCC report underlines the need for deep and urgent global emissions reduction and justifies India’s emphasis on equity at all scales in climate action and sustainable development. The report also fully supports India’s view on the necessity of public finance for developing countries and the need for scale, scope and speed in Climate Finance,’’said Yadav on Tuesday.

Yadav pointed out that the report specifically notes that “Tracked financial flows fall short of the levels needed to achieve mitigation goals across all sectors and regions. The challenge of closing gaps is largest in developing countries as a whole.” It also states that public finance falls short of the Copenhagen (reiterated when the Paris Agreement was signed) goal of USD 100 billion per year by 2020.

On climate finance, the report says, “Accelerated financial support for developing countries from developed countries and other sources is a critical enabler to enhance mitigation action and address inequities in access to finance, including its costs, terms and conditions and economic vulnerability to climate change for developing countries.’’

Among other important things the Report has underlined the need for deep and urgent global emissions reduction mentioning that four-fifths of the total carbon budget for 1.5 deg C temperature increase and two-thirds of the total carbon budget for 2 deg C warming has been already consumed, said the minister.

Both cumulative and per capita annual emissions rose during the pre-2020 period. Pre-2020 emissions reduction in developed countries has been insufficient in comparison to the developing world’s needs for sustainable development. Both historical cumulative emissions and per capita annual emissions show India’s role, as part of South Asia, is minimal.

With a shrinking remaining carbon budget, the access to a fair share of this budget for developing countries has become an important question, he said adding that questions on changes in lifestyle brought up by the report, as instruments of mitigation, is a stand that India has already endorsed, particularly with the view of curbing “unsustainable consumption”.