Union Environment Minister attends virtual Climate Action Ministerial

News: The 4th edition of the virtual Ministerial on Climate Action was organised to advance discussions on implementation of the Paris Agreement.

Facts:

• The virtual meeting was co-chaired by European Union, China and Canada.
• Key Discussions: India highlighted that developed country parties have not fulfilled their promise for extending financial and technological support to developing countries as envisaged under UNFCCC and its Paris Agreement.
  • The developed countries had made the commitment to mobilize $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020 and agreed to continue mobilizing finance at the level of $100 billion a year until 2025.

Additional Facts:

• Paris Agreement: It was adopted at the UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP) 21 in 2015 to address climate change and its negative impacts.
• Goals:
  • Temperature: hold warming below 2°C above pre-industrial levels with effective efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C
  • Adaptation: Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development
  • Low Emission Finance flows: Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.
• Intended Nationally Determined Targets(INDC): The Paris Agreement requires all Parties to put forward their best efforts through INDC’s and to strengthen these efforts in the years ahead.
• India’s intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) under Paris Agreement:
  • reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33% to 35% by 2030 from 2005 level,
  • increase total cumulative electricity generation from fossil free energy sources to 40% by 2030,
  • Create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tons through additional forest and tree cover.