New Delhi: Environment, forests and climate change minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday stuck to the government’s position of agreeing to no binding greenhouse gas emission cuts, even as India voluntarily does what it can to reduce them. He also said the country wants a growth window till 2040 or beyond, before it can start thinking of reducing emissions.
“We have people living in poverty but India is committed to grow green,” he said while speaking at a conference organized to discuss the recently released intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) report. Propagating scientific solutions for a lot of the problems, Javadekar said that “science will provide affordable solutions” for problems related to climate change and global warming.
R.K. Pachauri, director general of the energy and resources institute (TERI) and chairman of the IPCC, said the recently released report points out that 30% of the carbon dioxide emitted by the world has been absorbed by the oceans. “This has serious implications for all forms of marine life and our oceans are warming,” he said.
Pachauri added that the impact of climate change on agriculture, including crops such as wheat, maize and rice, could impact food security and water availability in the country.
The IPCC report released in April shows that global emissions have gone up substantially despite policies to reduce them. It shows that the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has risen to an unprecedented high and that emissions grew more quickly between 2000 and 2010 compared with each of the three previous decades.
The IPCC is a United Nations body that compiles and reviews existing literature on climate change.
Separately, talking about genetically modified (GM) crops, Javadekar said, “We are not saying no to science and we will have to take action,” indicating that his ministry is likely to give a go-ahead to confined field trials of GM crops. “While GM crops are important, proper precautions need to be taken,” he added.
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