India ratifies Paris deal, Modi stresses commitment to fight climate change
India on Sunday ratified the Paris climate-change deal, a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the surprise announcement of New Delhi joining the effort to control global warming
India on Sunday ratified the Paris climate-change deal, a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the surprise announcement of New Delhi joining the effort to control global warming.
The pact that is expected to kick in by year-end requires countries to come up with plans to limit greenhouse gas emission to keep global temperature rise to below 2°Celsius.
India deposited the instrument of ratification on the deal to the UN completing the process of joining the agreement.
With this India became the 62nd country to ratify the agreement taking the cumulative emission of such countries to 51.89%.
“This significant contribution towards the early entry into force of the Paris Agreement underlines Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment to global cause of environmental protection and climate justice and reaffirms India’s responsive leadership in addressing the impact of climate change,” said the Indian permanent mission to the UN in a statement on Sunday.
In reply to a tweet by US President Barack Obama , Prime Minister Modi too stressed his country’s commitment to fight climate change.
Read | Paris deal ratification not linked with NSG membership: Environment minister
India, which accounts for around 4.5% of global greenhouse emissions, held up the final steps of ratification to induce the US to put pressure on China to let New Delhi into the nuclear suppliers’ group, the elite club of countries that control trade in nuclear technologies.
But, forest and climate change minister Anil Madhav Dave on Saturday denied that the two were linked.
At the last month’s G20 summit, US President Barack the Obama did urge his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to let India in and after that New Delhi concluded it had extracted what it could on that front, sources said.
China and the US, the world’s biggest carbon emitters, ratified the accord ahead of the summit.
Dithering on joining Paris would have given China and others, who had already ratified the deal, first-mover advantage in setting the rules and parameters for the provision of technology finance and standards for future climate-change policy, sources said.
India took a tough stand on emissions and funding when the deal was hammered out in Paris in December. The agreement requires all countries to put forward their best efforts through “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) and to strengthen these efforts in the years ahead.
India submitted its action plan on October 2, 2015, committing to reduce growth of its carbon emissions by 33-35% of the economy by 2030.
To cut down emissions, India has pledged to increase its clean energy share -- solar and wind -- by 40% by 2022.
For the deal to come into force, at least 55 countries – responsible for 55% of the total global greenhouse gas emissions - have to ratify it.
(With agency inputs)
