Union Environment Minister Bhupinder Yadav on Wednesday reiterated India’s commitment to achieving its climate goals, even as he highlighted the prevailing inequalities underscoring climate talks.
India’s vision for climate action is to achieve 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030; Reducing the emissions intensity of GDP by 45% from 2005 levels; Achieving net zero by 2070; Strengthening the national green hydrogen mission and building climate-resilient infrastructure, Yadav said.
“The climate vision must be grounded in realism and underpinned by ambition and India’s vision is clear,” he added in his speech at the silver jubilee edition of the World Summit on Sustainable Development organized by the Energy and Resources Institute. He pointed out that this transformation will require a global vision that also includes tripling renewable energy worldwide. Double energy efficiency; Expanding adaptation financing to match mitigation financing; Reforming the multilateral development banks to unleash trillions in climate finance.
“Climate ambition and climate finance must advance together,” he said. “When financial mechanisms are transparent, predictable and inclusive, the transformation moves from promise to practice.”
Yadav also said that the first global assessment (at COP28 in Dubai in 2023) under the Paris Agreement has made one fact unambiguously clear. “Globally, we are not on track to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Emission reductions remain insufficient. Financing for adaptation remains insufficient. Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals is uneven. This is not a crisis of science. It is a crisis of scale, speed and systemic alignment,” he said, adding that the transition must go beyond mere gradual policy refinement. “It must change the architecture of energy systems, economic models, consumption patterns, and global governance frameworks.”
Yadav stressed that India has consistently upheld the principles of common but differentiated responsibilities, climate justice, fair carbon space, and inclusive carbon markets. He said: “These are not negotiating positions, but rather the foundations of permanent cooperation.” Yadav’s comments are particularly important because the United States, the largest historical emitter, last month withdrew from 66 international organizations and agreements, and its most significant exit, from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is likely to deal a devastating blow to global efforts to address the climate crisis.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted in 1992 to provide a legal basis for climate talks. All meetings of the Conference of the Parties are held under its auspices. The 2015 Paris Agreement was the result of these discussions. Nearly 200 countries have ratified the UNFCCC, with the United States being the first developed country to do so (after its Senate approval). Now, with the United States withdrawing from the agreement, several parties have asked how to achieve justice for countries that were not historically responsible for the crisis.
Bharrat Jagdeo, Vice President of Guyana who also addressed the conference, said the biggest issue facing the world now is the need to raise ambition to achieve climate goals.
“With the United States of America off the table, at this time when we have to raise ambition, it will be very difficult for us to achieve climate goals without the United States participating. That will have implications for carbon pricing systems that are essential to growing the climate sector, and it will have implications for multilateral systems that are critical for sustainability. And I’m talking here about aviation and shipping, regulatory fulfillment and many other sectors that are critical without the United States again, which is going to be very difficult, so I think the challenge for this gathering here is to find ways in which we can,” he said. Jagdeo: “We can move forward even without the United States.”
Siddharth Sharma, CEO of Tata Trusts, said there is an inherent bias in the way narratives are framed.
“When we talk about India being the fourth largest economy, we are told that this is a good thing but it depends on the population because you have a population of 1.4 billion, but if you look at per capita GDP, you are still at around US$2,500 and so on and you are still a low-income country. But when you talk about emissions and when we say that per capita emissions are less than the global average by about half or almost a third, we are told no, that is not what matters, what matters is your absolute number,” Sharma said.
