India to push for consensus on climate justice at Marrakech meet
NEW DELHI: India will seek a higher share in greenhouse gas-mitigating technologies and money for adapting to the vagaries of climate change at Marrakech in Morocco, where negotiations on rules to implement the Paris Agreement will begin on Monday.
The accord on climate change, whichaimstolimitglobalwarming to2degreesCelsius,cameintoforce on Friday. Environment minister Anil Madhav Dave told Hindustan TimesthatIndiawillbethevoiceof the developing world in Morocco, and it will ensure that climate justice – a concept propagated by PM Narendra Modi – is ingrained in the new rules.
All the countries had politically agreed to climate justice at Paris, but it did not find a place anywhere in the agreement except the preamble. Though an official admitted that the matter has remained “unresolved operationally”, he said developing a consensus for climate justice would be the mainstay for Indian negotiators at the conference.
The procedure for operationalising climate justice would be to have equitable compensation for global warming-induced calamities called Loss and Damage, which INDIA:
WHAT INDIA IS SEEKING AT MARRAKECH
Enhancing Ambition and promoting action between 2016 and 2020 Mobilising means of implementation— finance, technology and capacity-building support
has to be finalised in Marrakech. Bolivarian and African countries are most ardent advocates of climate justice through Loss and Damage, and they were assured in Paris that the mechanism would be finalised at the Moroccan meet.
However, climate justice holds a different connotation for India. It implies fairness in burden sharing for fighting climate change to protect vulnerable nations, especially those in South Asia, and ensure that rich countries do enough to support the ‘victims’. This can happen only through easy finance and adequate technology transfer. A
before and after 2020 Equitable loss and damage mechanism Furthering the PM’s agenda of sustainable lifestyles and climate justice by getting it ingrained in rules
majority of the new climate-friendly technologies are expensive, and arepatentedbyrichnations.Unless they agree to distribute them in an equitable manner, the fight against climate change will be restricted to mere lip service. “We will raise issues related to finance under the Green Climate Fund and technology transfer at affordable prices to the developing world,” Dave said.
However, TERI director general Ajay Mathur said India must keep a watch on transparency rules framed under the Paris Agreement to ensure they are not too “intrusive”.