Prime Minister Modi announced that India and the U.S. were launching an energy and climate partnership during U.S. President Joe Biden’s Leaders Summit on Climate, a two day gathering that included 40 heads of state and government. Details of the partnership are yet to be announced, however.
“As a climate-responsible developing country, India welcomes partners to create templates of sustainable development in India. These can also help other developing countries, who need affordable access to green finance and clean technologies,” Mr Modi said via a video link.
“That is why, President Biden and I are launching the “India-US climate and clean energy Agenda 2030 partnership”. Together, we will help mobilise investments, demonstrate clean technologies, and enable green collaborations,” he said.
“Despite our development challenges, we have taken many bold steps on clean energy, energy efficiency, afforestation and bio-diversity. That is why we are among the few countries whose NDCs are 2-degree-Celsius compatible,” Mr Modi said.
NDCs or Nationally Defined Contributions are targets defined by each country to help achieve the Paris Agreement’s objective of keeping global warming to considerably below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius. India is targeting a 2030 GDP emissions intensity ( i.e., volume of emissions per unit of GDP) that is 33%-35% below 2005 levels. It also seeks to have 40% of power generated from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030.
Although China, the U.S. and India are the top three emitters of CO2 in absolute terms, the U.S. has a much greater per capita emission statistic than China and India.
“Today, as we discuss global climate action, I want to leave one thought with you. India’s per capita carbon footprint is 60% lower than the global average. It is because our lifestyle is still rooted in sustainable traditional practices,” Mr Modi said, adding that a a philosophy of ‘back to basics’ must be an “important pillar of our economic strategy” in the post-COVID era.
Global economic output and growth in India were decimated last year due to the pandemic.
At ‘moment of peril,’ Biden opens global summit on climate
Saying the United States and other big economies “have to get this done,” President Joe Biden opened a global climate summit aimed at getting world leaders to dig deeper on emissions cuts. The United States pledged to cut in half the amount of climate-wrecking coal and petroleum fumes it is pumping out.
“Meeting this moment is about more than preserving our planet,” Mr. Biden declared, speaking from a TV-style set for a virtual summit of 40 world leaders. “It’s about providing a better future for all of us,” he said, calling it “a moment of peril but a moment of opportunity.” “The signs are unmistakable. the science is undeniable. the cost of inaction keeps mounting,” he added.
Biden administration is sketching out a vision of a prosperous, clean-energy United States where factories churn out cutting-edge batteries for export, line workers re-lay an efficient national electrical grid and crews cap abandoned oil and gas rigs and coal mines.
His commitment to cut US fossil fuel emissions up to 52% by 2030 marks a return by the US to global climate efforts after four years of withdrawal under President Donald Trump. Japan, a heavy user of coal, announced its own new 46% emissions reduction target Thursday before the summit opened as the US and its allies sought to build momentum.
The Biden administration’s pledge would require by far the most ambitious US climate effort ever, nearly doubling the reductions that the Obama administration had committed to in the landmark 2015 Paris climate accord.
The new urgency comes as scientists say that climate change caused by coal plants, car engines and other fossil fuel use is already worsening droughts, floods, hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters and that humans are running out of time to stave off most catastrophic extremes of global warming.
But administration officials, in previewing the new target, disclosed aspirations and vignettes rather than specific plans, budget lines or legislative proposals for getting there.
Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris opened the Earth Day summit from the White House East Room before world leaders, including those from China, Russia, India, Gulf oil states, European and Asian allies and island and coastal nations already struggling against the effects of climate change. Pope Francis was also due to take part.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the summit was playing out as a climate telethon-style livestream, limiting opportunities for spontaneous interaction and negotiation. The effort opened with a technological glitch — an echo in Harris’s and Biden’s remarks that was soon fixed.
(with inputs from PTI)