JAVADEKAR

backed by Centre for Science and Environment director general Sunita Narain, who called for India to bat for the poor and deprived, who are most vulnerable to climate change.

“India has to fight for the world’s poor and for equity in emission targets. We must insist that the countries have to take reductions based on the contributions to the climate problem,” Narain said at a session on climate change and green economy.

Javadekar said India will overachieve its climate targets, called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), under the Paris agreement for reducing emission intensity by 30-35% of gross domestic product at the 2005 level and creating renewable energy capacity of 175 gigawatts (GW) by 2030.

While India will fulfil its climate promises, Javadekar said, rich countries have not even met the pre-2020 targets as they had put less than $40 billion on the table compared to the $1 trillion they were supposed to give the developing countries by now (based on a 2009 promise of $100 billion a year by 2020).

“They (developed world) need to provide funds and patent-free technology transfer to us (the developing world) to meet the Paris agreement goal of keeping temperature below 2°C by the turn of the century,” he said.

Earth sciences ministry secretary Madhavan Nair Rajeevan pointed out that south Asia and Africa were the two most vulnerable regions to climate change. “We will become more prone to heat waves and droughts and extreme rainfall events would lead to more flooding in cities such as Chennai and Mumbai,” he predicted, at the conclave.

Negotiations under the Paris climate deal will enter a decisive phase this year with an operational pact to be sealed at the Glasgow climate conference. With the current commitments, the world will still be heading for a temperature rise of over 3°C by end of this century, according to the Emissions Gap Report 2020 released last month.