NEW DELHI:Ahead of the UN climate change talks in Paris, India on Friday announced it would reduce the emission intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 per cent by 2030 from the 2005 level and achieve about 40 per cent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel based energy resources by 2030.
Submitting the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC), the voluntary measures New Delhi intends to take to tackle climate change, to the UN, Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said: “Our INDCs are comprehensive, ambitious and progressive, and reflect all issues of mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology transfer and capacity building.”
India also plans to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.
The country’s current voluntary pledge is for reducing the emission intensity of its GDP by 20-25 per cent over the 2005 levels, by 2020. For meeting the country’s climate change actions between now and 2030, the Environment Minister said that as per preliminary estimates, at least USD 2.5 trillion (at 2014-15 prices) would be required.
India emphasised that successful implementation of the INDC was contingent upon the means of implementation to be provided by the developed country parties, technology transfer and capacity-building. “India’s climate actions have so far been largely financed from domestic resources. Developing countries like India are resource-constrained and are already spending enormous amounts on climate change. Implementing climate change and mitigation and adaptation actions would require domestic and new and additional funds from developed countries in view of the resource required and resource gap,” he said.
As many as 196 countries are party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and will submit INDCs ahead of the Conference of Party (COP 21) in Paris later this year. The INDC outlines the post-2020 climate actions they intend to take under a new international pact. As of now, nearly 150 countries have made submissions to the UN about the domestic measures they plan to take in this regard.
