India set to achieve Paris pact targets before deadline: Modi
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said India is set to achieve its targets under the Paris climate agreement well before the deadline while emphasising that behavioural change was the most powerful way to fight climate change.
“Friends, it would make you all happy that over the last seven years India’s forest cover has grown significantly. The population of lions, tigers, leopards and waterfalls have grown. These are great indicators of positive behavioural changes. It is this changes that convince us that India is well on track to achieve its Paris Agreement targets well before the target date of 2030,” Modi said at the virtual event CERAWeek 2021, an annual energy conference organised by IHS Markit.
India is a signatory to the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. As part of its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), India has three quantitative climate change goals -- reduction in the emissions intensity of gross domestic product (GDP) by 33 to 35% by 2030 from the 2005 level, achieving about 40% cumulative electric power installed capacity from nonfossil fuel based energy resources by 2030 and creating an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.
PM Modi on Friday received the CERA Week Global Energy and Environment Leadership Award instituted to recognise commitment of leadership on solutions and policies for energy access, affordability and environmental stewardship.
“It is with great humility that I accept the CERA Week Global Energy and Environment Leadership Award. I dedicate this award to the people of our great Motherland, India... I dedicate this award to the glorious tradition of our land that has shown the way when it comes to caring for the environment,” he said.
Modi said a close bond between nature and people was central to Indian culture and people of India were leaders when it came to caring for the environment. “Nature and divinity are closely linked. Our gods and goddesses are associated with some or the other tree or animal. Trees and animals are also sacred,” he said.
He said Mahatma Gandhi was the greatest environment champion to have ever lived. “If humanity had followed the path given by him we would not have faced many of the problems we do today,” he said.
Explaining India’s tradition of water conservation, he urged people to visit Mahatma Gandhi’s hometown of Porbandar in Gujarat where underground tanks were constructed about 200 years ago to save rainwater.
Speaking about Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of trusteeship, he gave the concept of “consumption with compassion”. At the core of trusteeship were “collectiveness, compassion and responsibility” he said.