India will take action on climate change not at somebody’s diktat but on its own volition, said Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday.
Addressing the UN climate summit , he listed the various green initiatives taken by the country which include doubling the installed wind energy capacity over the next five years, increasing installed solar capacity to over 20000 MW by 2020, achieving 10,000 MW of Energy Efficiency savings by 2020 amongst others.
The key challenge is to enable this higher energy consumption at a cost that people are willing and able to pay, and with lower carbon intensity. We are fully committed to achieving our voluntary goal for reducing Emission Intensity of its GDP by 20-25% by 2020 over 2005 level.
Javadekar, however, stressed that India demands that the developed world should not simply come out with new terminology each time but “now walk the talk” on tackling climate change and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
“What we expect from the world is that the developed world should honor their commitment on the Green Climate Fund as well as cutting their own emissions,” he said adding that for India, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the real mandate.
While there can be complimentary efforts to strengthen action, Javadekar said that parallel efforts will divert attention. “We want to work under the UNFCCC mandate. There is scope for negotiations. We expect that Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) are determined nationally and not internationally,” he said. We expect that Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) are determined nationally and not internationally,” he said. Javadekar said that while India’s INDCs will be “ambitious enough”, at the same time basic principles of equity are also important.
“All will take responsibility, all will act but responsibility of developed countries is different and that must be recognised,” he added. Javadekar asaid India expects that the UN climate conference in lima in December should bring out more contours, more basic framework of the text which will be ultimately negotiated in Paris next year.