India on Tuesday made it clear that it will raise its climate ambitions but not under pressure and that it was suffering because of the mistakes of others and “is not responsible for climate change that is happening”.
Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar in his speech after a meeting with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at the French Embassy also said that India will not allow anybody to forget their historical responsibility.
French minister le Drian said the consequences will be disastrous if the world is not able to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, or even 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.
That’s why it is absolutely indispensable that all countries increase their climate commitments by the time the COP26 takes place in Glasgow, as required by the Paris Agreement, he said.
“This increase in ambition must include setting new nationally determined contributions by 2030 and also long-term strategies to achieve carbon neutrality. We must stop building new coal-based power plants and it is essential that we progressively stop this mode of electricity production at a global level,” le Drian said.
Javadekar said, “We will complete our commitments, raise our ambitions but not under pressure. And we will also ask countries to provide finance and technological support and about their (climate) actions.”
He said India is the only G-20 country to walk the talk on the Paris climate agreement and “we have done more than we promised”. The Minister said that the frequency of abnormal (weather) events has increased but “let us not forget that this is not a new phenomenon”.
“What we are suffering today was caused 100 years ago. European and American countries and China, in the last 30 years, emitted (greenhouse gases) and therefore, the world is suffering… India is suffering because of the actions of others,” he said, adding that historical responsibility is a very important aspect in climate debate.
“We cannot just forget it (historical responsibility), and we will not allow anybody to forget it,” Javadekar said.
Everyone is facing common threats, but those who have polluted will have to act more, he said adding that they (developed countries ) committed in Copenhagen, 100 billion dollars per year… but where is the money. There is no money in sight,” he said.
Under the Copenhagen Accord, developed countries committed to a goal of mobilising 100 billion dollar a year by 2020 to help developing countries mitigate climate change.