Paris climate talks: Developed countries not fulfilling their obligations, says India

Paris: India on Thursday strongly asserted that the goal of capping global warming to within 1.5 degree Celsius from pre-industrial times will require developed countries to "massively" reduce their emissions and "scale up" the financial support to developing countries.

"On long term temperature goal, we are deeply sensitive to the demands for higher climate ambition. I understand fully the demand for mentioning 1.5 degrees, as we also have over 1300 islands in India," said Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar.

"However, a 1.5 degree goal would require developed countries to massively reduce their emissions and massively 'scale up' their financial support to developing countries. This is not happening," Javadekar said during a negotiating session.

The goal of capping global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius finds a mention in the draft negotiating text which was unveiled yesterday.

BASIC countries which also includes India have kept their options open for recognising the demand and had said that they were discussing the issue while "hoping" to reach an understanding soon.

"During the joint statement after our Beijing meeting, we emphasised the importance of holding the increase average global temperature rise to below 2 degree Celsius. But we would like to highlight we are mindful about the concerns (about 1.5 degree target), said Izabella Teixeira, Brazil's Environment Minister.

"This is an issue for concern. We are discussing this. This is also a concern for Brazil and BASIC countries. I can say clearly that we are discussing the matter and I can assure

That we will come with a joint position during the conference. We are working hard for this agreement. We hope come to an understanding on this," Teixeira said during the joint press briefing of BASIC countries where Javadekar was present.

In 2009, countries agreed to work towards ensuring that global temperatures do not rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.

There has been a consistent demand from the small island states, Least Developing Countries (LDC) and vulnerable countries for a downward revision to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The demand has not had too much traction in the past but

it changed in Paris and the demand has got grown here.

India has, however, made it clear that it is not hostile to the demands for a downward revision of the global temperature goal.

Experts from India however today said the world must agree to a fair allocation of carbon space and massive enhancement of financial and technological support from the developed countries to developing ones to achieve this target.

Noting that developed countries will have to significantly increase the level of their own efforts and reach net zero emissions in the next 5-10 years, experts said that if they fail to do so, the 1.5 degree target will "remain a hollow shell devoid of any real significance".

"While we welcome this increase in ambition, we would like to draw the attention of the climate negotiators to the need to allocate the remaining carbon budget in a fair manner to all countries so that there is a chance for meeting this temperature target," said the three experts T Jayaraman, professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Anand Patwardhan, professor at the University of Maryland and IIT-Bombay and Chandra Bhushan, Deputy Director General, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

"We would also like to emphasis the fact that meeting this temperature goal would require massive enhancement of financial and technological support from the developed countries to the developing countries so that they are able to move quickly onto low-carbon development pathways," they said.

"In addition, developed countries will have to significantly increase the level of their own efforts and reach net zero emissions in the next 5-10 years. In the absence of such commitments, a 1.5 degree Celsius temperature target would remain a hollow shell ? devoid of any real significance," the experts said in a joint statement.