With regard to the Paris climate conference, the environment ministry has started its inter-ministerial consultation, which would be on five essential pillars — climate finance, mitigation, adaptation, equity and innovation.
With regard to the Paris climate conference, the environment ministry has started its inter-ministerial consultation, which would be on five essential pillars — climate finance, mitigation, adaptation, equity and innovation.
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The agenda will form the bedrock for the nationally determined contributions (INDCs), which India is likely to submit to the United States by June before the next round of climate change negotiations in Bonn, Germany.
“We expect the Bonn meeting to be more decisive than the recently concluded one in Geneva where the negotiating text got longer,” a senior environment ministry official said.
The length of the negotiating text for Paris conference had increased from 35 pages to 85 at Geneva indicating that huge differences still persist among countries on the framework of the new climate treaty, which will be applicable from 2020.
As the negotiations move to a crucial stage, the government has studied what could be India’s carbon emissions in different timeframes and the possible actions to slow down emissions.
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The Centre has also got a study done on the impact of climate change and the funding required for the possible adaptation actions.
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The Centre has also got a study done on the impact of climate change and the funding required for the possible adaptation actions.
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Senior ministry officials said inputs from different ministries has been sought regarding the studies and the inter-ministerial discussion has been initiated to develop a cohesive stand on the issues involved.
The discussion will also lead to how much money India needs from the US $10 billion Green Climate Fund for mitigation and adaptation.
Environment minister Prakash Javadekar has already stated that India would like the money to be divided between mitigation and adaptation.
“The discussion will provide definite figure on the money needed for the two crucial aspects of climate change,” the official said.
The outcome of the discussion will also translate into India’s INDCs for the Paris conference.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
