Follow Paris climate process: Javadekar (Interview)

 Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar said on Monday the world should focus on achieving climate targets as per the 2015 Paris Agreement and not botch up new issues.

"India's expectation from the COP25 is that we should concentrate more on the Paris Agreement and not broach up new issues and new subjects," he told IANS on the sidelines of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) negotiations in the Spanish capital which entered its second and penultimate week.

Javadekar was categorically clear in saying that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other science-based reports have tracked how countries are functioning.

"India is one of the top five nations in performing according to the Paris Agreement. We are walking the talk. We have reduced our emissions intensity by 21 per cent since 2005 and we are very sure that we will achieve our target of 35 per cent (reduction) by 2030," Javadekar said in his first media interaction after reaching the COP venue.

At the same time, he said, "We have 175 GW and we have already achieved half of it and will provide more in three years' time by 2022."

"The Prime Minister has now given a new target of 450 GW and it's a huge programme of renewables anywhere in the world in one go. We are walking the talk on renewables also," he said.

According to the Environment Minister, India is probably one or two countries where forest green cover is increasing.

"We have increased the forest and tree cover outside the forest at 13,000 sq km and it is huge for country in the world," Javadekar said.

"Therefore, India wants all the countries to first follow the Paris Agreement. It will be futile to talk of new targets, new ambitions and new programmes unless we carry out our implementation of the Paris Agreement," he said.

"India has done tremendous work in last five years itself. Now the developed countries need to really take up their ambitious (mitigation) targets for pre-2020 actions.

"No one should give excuse that now it is only one year left, so forget it (targets). We will not forget because it was a historical promise and the Kyoto Protocol Parties must take the responsibility," the minister said.

"If they (the developed nations) want, they can declare their targets in this COP and then they can get two-three years more to carry them out fully. That can be adjusted, but pre-2020 can't be sidelined or pushed back. India is very firm on acting on the Paris Agreement," Javadekar said.

With 197 parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement.

The main aim of the Paris Agreement is to keep the global average temperature rise this century well below 2 degree Celsius and to drive efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The UNFCCC is also the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The ultimate objective of all agreements under the UNFCCC is to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system, in a timeframe which allows ecosystems to adapt naturally and enables sustainable development.IANS