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India is on track to reduce emissions

Topics Covered: Conservation related issues.

India is on track to reduce emissions:

Context:

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said that India was the only major G20 country that was on track towards keeping to its nationally determined commitments to halt runaway global warming.

  • It had achieved 21% of its emissions intensity reduction target as a proportion of its GDP in line with its pledge to a 33-35% reduction by 2030.

Background:

These remarks were made ahead of the international Climate Ambition Summit to be jointly hosted shortly by the United Nations, the United Kingdom and France, in partnership with Chile and Italy to mark the fifth anniversary of the adoption of the Paris Agreement.

Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC):

In 2015, ahead of the United Nations’ significant climate conference in Paris, India announced three major voluntary commitments called the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC):

  1. Improving the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33–35% by 2030 over 2005 levels.
  2. Increasing the share of non-fossil fuels-based electricity to 40% by 2030.
  3. Enhancing its forest cover, thereby absorbing 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.

The Paris Agreement:

  • The Paris Agreement, adopted at COP 21 in Paris, on December 12, 2015, constitutes a landmark agreement on climate change that seeks to limit global average temperature rise to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and endeavour to limit the increase to 1.5°C.
  • The agreement, which came into force on November 4, 2016, currently has 188 parties.
  • All parties to it are expected to undertake ambitious efforts to support the agreement’s goals and communicate their related intentions every five years in the form of NDCs.
  • In the first round, 186 parties submitted their first NDC and two have since submitted a second one.

paris_climate_agreement

InstaLinks:

Prelims Link:

  1. What is Paris Agreement?
  2. Which countries have not signed?
  3. Targets.
  4. Funding mechanism announced under the Paris Agreement.

Mains Link:

Discuss the significance of the Paris Climate deal.

Sources: the Hindu.