New Delhi: Reiterating that India has already started ratification of the landmark Paris Climate Agreement signed by 195 nations at New York in April this year, Indian Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on Monday said New Delhi would require “financial and technical assistance” to implement its climate goals.
“As far as the ratification is concerned, India has already started the process,” Javadekar said, addressing the Seventh St. Petersburg Climate Dialogue in Berlin, Germany.
The two-day Climate dialogue that began on Monday is the informal ministerial meet co-hosted by Germany and Morocco. Thirty-five countries are attending the conference.
Germany has, meanwhile, extended support to the developing countries to help them meet their climate targets, a demand being raised by several developing countries after the COP-21 agreement was signed.
“Cooperation is the key for taking actions further, because every country is at a different level of development. We need cooperation, we have the will to act, but we do not have the wherewithal to do it, not only in terms of finances, but particularly in terms of technology,” Javadekar said.
Stressing upon the pre-2020 agenda fixed during the Paris Conference of the Parties (COP)-21 held in December 2015, Javadekar said that the October 5, 2015, joint statement issued by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chancellor Angela Merkel in New Delhi was the base of Indo-German partnership programme.
During Merkel’s visit to the New Delhi, Modi said that he admired German leadership in clean energy and commitment in combating climate change
“Germany is the most reliable name in technology in many fields and, therefore, there is finance, technology and mutual cooperation and walking the talk,” Javadekar said.
He also drew parallels between Germany’s aspiration to meet 80 percent of its domestic power needs through renewable energy sources, saying that India too has hiked its clean energy targets by five times.
“Our earlier target was only 20 Giga Watts of solar energy… we scaled up it by 5 times and made it 100 Giga Watts. Other renewable energy like wind energy, now we have opened it for offshore also,” the minister said. India aims to achieve this target by 2022.
The United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP-21 held in Paris, adopted the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal. The agreement sets out a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2 degree Celsius. The agreement is due to enter into force in 2020.
Germany on Monday announced plans to help developing countries to help them to transform their national climate action plan into specific strategies and measures.
German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks and Development Minister Gerd Müller said this while addressing the Berlin conference.
“We are ready to support developing countries in tackling this challenge and to share our experience with them. This should also give our partner countries new opportunities for development. I believe that this initiative will send an important political signal at the next Marrakesh climate conference,” Hendricks said on Monday.
—IANS