“The next 10 years will decide whether 1.5 degrees is achievable. And they will also decide whether net zero [emissions] is feasible by 2050. Because if you don’t do enough in the first decade, you can’t get a steep enough production curve to do it afterwards, barring some miracle discovery that we don’t have as yet today,” Mr. Kerry told a group of journalists. When asked if he had any firm commitments from India on raising climate ambitions, Mr. Kerry said “no one said no, but no one said yes”, adding that the final decision was PM Narendra Modi’s prerogative, and “internal deliberations” need to take place to make that decision.
At a separate function during the day, a day after he met Mr. Kerry, Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav said India is focused on the “key issues” of climate justice and sustainable lifestyles, stressing on the inequality between the demands of developed societies from developing countries on emissions cuts.
“[I] Underlined that ‘net zero’ alone is not enough. We need deeds, not just plain words,” Mr. Yadav said, speaking at an event organised by business chamber FICCI. He also referred to a recent report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that said that even if the world achieves a global warming level held at 1.5 degrees by 2050, it would still be “too little too late” to clean up the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, as a “clarion call” for developed countries, a Ministry press release said.
(With inputs from
Jacob Koshy)
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