Developed world has to walk the talk on climate change: India

Washington: The developed world would have to "walk the talk" on climate change and provide a green climate fund to the developing world, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar has said, ahead of a crucial UN meet on the issue in Paris later this year.

"Developed world would now have to walk the talk and will have to provide green climate fund to the developing world," Javadekar said yesterday.

He said India is pro-actively engaging with the world to arrive at a fair and equitable climate agreement in Paris.

Javadekar, who is leading an Indian delegation to the US for a two-day meeting of Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate being hosted here on April 19-20, said India is taking action to mitigate the effects of climate change.

"Prime Minster (Narendra Modi) has put up an ambitious target of generating 175,000 megawatts of renewable energy. That is a huge contribution of India, because it will save 350 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year and would require 150 billion of investment. This is a huge contribution of India, essentially pre-2020," he said.

"So the developed world would also have to put their best foot forward. This pre-2020 actions would pave the way for more actions from 2020 onwards," he said.

Javadekar said India is a growing economy but climate change is a cumulative effect of hundreds of years of carbon emission by the developed world.

"So historic responsibility is important," he said.

Referring to the Kyoto Protocol, the world's first climate agreement adopted in 1997, Javadekar said "the protocol is getting over. But the basic mandate and the principles of UNFCCC remains."

"So under the same principles and that was the consensus arrived at Lima, we hope to build upon that theme and the whole world is taking action on its own. It's a great move forward," he said.

In Kyoto, some countries were mandated to take action and others were not, but now every country is taking action and that is a great movement forward, Javadekar said.

He said the developed world must understand "the way developing world is ready to take action and actually respect."

"Because Paris is continuation of Kyoto, not negation of Kyoto and the principle of common and differentiated responsibility, the historic responsibility remains embedded and would ever remain embedded in Paris agreement also," he said.

"I hope that each country's action will definitely give a new momentum to an action to mitigate climate change and will also boost development of new technology and innovations," he said.

The minister said that India believes in human intent and intellect. "Therefore we are engaging with all countries. I have come here for the major economic forum meeting which is important."

There would be two more meetings of the MEF before the UN conference in Paris in December.

Javadekar said India is networking with as many countries as possible on the climate issue. "From here we are going to Moscow where BRICS would meet," he said.