April 16 ------ India, one of the world’s major carbon producers and fastest growing economies, insisted Wednesday Europe, China and America must finance its efforts to halt rising temperatures ahead of major climate talks. Although the third biggest carbon dioxide emitter globally, thanks to a heavy reliance on coal, India has set ambitious targets to curb emissions. But Environment Minister Prakash Javedkar said they would not pay for the pollution “suffering” inflicted over the past century by the United States, China and Europe.
India, which has complained that money promised at previous environmental summits has not been provided, would not act under “pressure from other countries”. Javedkar spoke at a debate in New Delhi with France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, the latest international envoy to urge more ambitious targets ahead of November’s UN climate conference in Glasgow. Forty world leaders including India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also take part in a virtual climate summit called by US President Joe Biden on April 22-23.
It follows US climate envoy John Kerry visit to New Delhi last week, part of a South Asian tour to urge tougher emissions targets. Javedkar also kept up India’s insistence that pollution produced by the US and Europe over the past century and China in the past four decades was causing today’s problems. “They emitted and therefore the world is suffering, India is suffering because of actions of others,” he said. “We will not allow anybody to forget it.” But Le Drian — without naming India — said the world had to stop the production of coal power.
While the nation has set an ambitious target to increase renewable power, coal accounts for about 70 percent of its electricity generation. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in February the country’s carbon dioxide emissions are on course to rise 50 percent by 2040 — enough to offset the projected fall in European emissions over the same period. To put India on a “sustainable path” over the next 20 years would require $1.4 trillion — 70 percent more than its current policies allow, the IEA said.
Source: mb.com.ph