India to ratify Paris climate deal, president gives assent

NEW DELHI: India is all set to ratify the Paris climate deal on Sunday, with President Pranab Mukherjee giving his assent to a proposal approved earlier by the government, making India one of the key countries to help bring the pact into force.

“We will ratify the Paris deal in the UN tomorrow. The president has signed it. The Union Cabinet has already approved it,” Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave told reporters here.

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced on September 25 that India will ratify it on October 2 on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

“This (decision) was taken after a lot of deliberations and with a view to give the world a messege...India is fast becoming a super power,” Dave said.

“Call it international pressure or a sort of competition, this morning European Union has also decided to ratify it, which is a good thing,” Dave said.

The Union Cabinet had given its nod to ratifying the Paris climate deal on September 28, days after Modi announced this at BJP’s National Council meet in Kozhikode. The move is expected to give momentum to the implementation of measures at the international level to control global warming.

India’s ratification on Sunday will further underline its responsive leadership, which is committed to global cause of environment. The pact will come into force after it has been ratified by at least 55 countries which account for 55 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

India’s decision to ratify the agreement will take the number of cumulative level of emission of countries that have ratified the agreement so far to 51.89 per cent as its total emissions is 4.1 per cent of the global emissions.

Dave said after EU has decided to ratify it, the total emissions amongst countries which have ratified the agreement will go up to 61 per cent. Paris Agreement was adopted by 185 nations last year on December 12 and India signed it in New York on April 22 this year.

A total of 191 countries have signed the Paris Agreement so far. However, India has decided to ratify the agreement “in the context” of its national laws, availability of means of implementation and “its own assessment” of global commitment to combating climate change.

“While agreeing to ratify the Paris agreement, the Cabinet has also decided that India should declare that it will treat its national laws, its development agenda, availability of means of implementation, its assessment of global commitment to combating climate change, and predictable and affordable access to cleaner source of energy as the context in which the agreement is being ratified,” an official statement had earlier said.