Developing nations say swifter climate action depends on cash to pay for it

KATOWICE, Poland - Developing countries with fewer resources to cut carbon emissions and adapt to climate change cannot step up their efforts to combat global warming unless they get more support in the form of funding and technology, they said on Thursday.

India will deliver on what it has promised to do under the 2015 Paris Agreement by boosting renewable energy production, expanding forests, and generating fewer emissions in relation to its gross domestic product, its chief negotiator AK Mehta said.

“We are very certain that we will not renege on our commitment - we will do what is required,” he told journalists on the sidelines of U.N. climate talks in Poland.

The U.S.-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said this month that India is on track to achieve two of its three targets well ahead of a 2030 deadline.

But it faces challenges in doing so, Mehta emphasised.

If the South Asian nation wanted to step up its efforts on solar power in a big way, for example, it would need assistance with energy storage technology, he noted.

India met a 2020 goal of installing 20 gigawatts of solar power four years early, and is now aiming for 100 gigawatts by 2022, making it one of the world’s most ambitious adopters.

But as nations around the world try to move toward a common goal of reducing emissions, “everybody is not similarly placed” in their ability to make those cuts, Mehta said.

More than 190 countries are meeting in the coal-mining town of Katowice through December 14 to hammer out rules that will enable the Paris accord to be put into practice from 2020, and spur countries to strengthen their current climate action plans.

Current pledges to cut emissions would lead to global warming of about 3 degrees Celsius this century, scientists say.

Under the Paris deal, governments have pledged to hold temperature rise to “well below” 2 degrees C above pre-industrial times, and ideally to 1.5 degrees C.

The world has already warmed about 1 degree C, scientists say. – THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION.