BackClimate action requires funds, says New Delhi
The Summit is being hosted by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, from September 23 in New YorkIndia asserts that it is doing its best for mitigation and climate action
PremiumNEW DELHI : Developed nations should fulfil their commitments for climate finance before developing countries could be expected to step up action on climate change, India has said ahead of the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend the 23 September summit being hosted by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. It is expected to call upon leaders of various countries to enhance emission reduction targets to what they have already agreed to under the Paris Agreement in the form of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
There is grave concern over developing countries being denied their right to financial resources for climate action, said the finance ministry in a discussion paper on the financial perspectives of India in the wake of this worldwide call for stepping up climate action.
India asserted that it is doing its best for mitigation and climate action. It said finance remains the critical issue and the country is stepping up its targets by relying on domestic budgetary resources.
India made it clear that in the prevailing circumstances it “may only be in a position to elaborate or clarify its post 2020 climate actions already pledged in its NDCs", which includes a 40% non-fossil based power capacity by 2030.
“India would consider a mid-term assessment of its actions and suitably recalibrate through re-examination and improvement when the global stocktake takes place in 2023," it said.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement mandated developed countries to provide financial resources to developing countries for taking climate action. In 2009, developed countries committed to a goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries.
However, these commitments have not materialized. As of 31 July, the total pledges to the Green Climate Fund (GFC) are a meagre $10.3 billion.
For the developing countries, the estimated cost of implementing NDCs would be well over $4 trillion. India alone will need around $206 billion at 2014-15 prices between 2015 and 2030 to implement new technologies and practices in cultivation and other measures as part of its NDCs.
Developing countries have myriad developmental challenges and scarce resources, and climate change puts an additional burden though their contribution to the cause of climate change is minimal.
“There is no time to lose, as implementation of NDCs will have to be rolled out from 2021, which is only a little more than a year away. However, the reality is that the implementation of NDCs of developing countries will apparently hit a roadblock in the face of an uncertain future in the provisioning of climate finance," the finance ministry said.
The current climate action goals require countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% over the next decade to net zero emissions by 2050.
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