Having agreed to accede to the January 31 U.N. deadline, the government has started working on a blueprint detailing emission cut targets and climate steps to be submitted under the Copenhagen Accord.
The BASIC bloc comprising India, China, South Africa and Brazil had on Sunday agreed to stick to the deadline to submit the voluntary mitigation actions including carbon emission cuts — which would eventually lead to reduction in greenhouse gas emissions — to the UNFCCC.
“We have started work on the details we intend to communicate to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),” a senior official handling the climate change division in the Environment Ministry said.
Senior environment officials under the chairmanship of Joint Secretary (Climate) J.M. Mausker held a meeting on Monday to discuss the strategy, a day after India announced its intention to abide by January 31 deadline.
The official said India’s submission will be the same as its official announcement at Copenhagen meet last year of bringing down its carbon intensity — amount of carbon emitted by per unit of GDP — by 20-25 per cent by 2020 on 2005 levels.
“Moreover, we have already initiated a series of voluntary climate mitigation measures such as setting up a group headed by economist Kirit Parikh for preparing as well analysing the cost of low-carbon growth economy,” the official added.
The group will focus on the high carbon emitting sectors like cement manufacturing, power generation, transport, steel and building construction. An interim roadmap will be in place by April this year and the final plan in September.
“However, in the submission we will not include details of the sectoral emission cuts but just a broad idea on the steps to be taken for climate mitigation and adaptation,” the environment ministry official said.
The country will also specify its steps of framing a National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) envisaging eight missions to tackle global warming and setting up Indian Network on Climate Change Assessment (INCCA), a network of scientists to publish peer-reviewed findings on climate change in India under the Accord.
As per the Copenhagen Accord, rich countries are supposed to submit by January 31 their targets for cuts in emissions by 2020 and developing nations should outline actions for slowing the emission increase to help prevent global warming.
Even as the U.N. has expressed readiness to be flexible with the developed nations on the deadline date, the BASIC countries have made clear that they will stick to what they had committed under the Accord.
Besides Brazil, China, South Africa and India, South Korea, Ghana, Australia, France, Canada, Papua New Guinea and the Maldives have indicated their commitment to the accord while Cuba has said it will not take part.
