A day after setting the 2070 deadline for net zero carbon emission, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had one-on-one meetings with global leaders, while India held its ground on pushing the cut-off date.

The deliberations were part of the two-week COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow to brainstorm and take on commitments for reducing emissions.

While the PM held meetings with his Nepal counterpart Sher Bahadur Deuba, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, Israeli PM Naftali Bennett, among others, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla underlined that India has taken on a much bigger share of commitments.

Shringla pointed out that the 2070 target leaves India with one of the shortest gaps between the peak emission year and net-zero year, reflecting the country’s willingness to contribute to climate change despite its preoccupation with development issues.

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At an event on the effect of climate change on Small Island Developing States (SIDS), Modi committed that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will build a special data window for SIDS to get timely information about cyclones, coral-reef monitoring and coast-line monitoring through satellites. The Foreign Secretary, at the same time, underlined that India’s contribution should not be minimised.

“While many economies that have announced a net zero (target) have peaked much earlier, we are yet to peak. We have to reach that level of development and industrial activity that would provide us with a future that we expect for our citizens,” Shringla said at a press conference after Modi’s national statement at the COP 26 Climate Summit in Glasgow on Monday.

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Focus on alleviating poverty

Although most developed countries, including EU members and the US, have agreed to achieve net-zero by 2050, they reached their emission peaks several years back.

Many European countries including France, Germany, the UK, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands achieved the peaks in the 1990s, while the US achieved its carbon emission peak in 2007. India, on the other hand, is unlikely to reach its peak before 2040. The PM has outlined India’s own progression that has led up to the net-zero situation, Shringla said.

“The PM has pointed out that as we are essentially a developing country, our focus is on bringing millions of our citizens out of poverty. We are working night and day to ease the standard of living in India of our citizens. We constitute 17 per cent of the world’s population. Yet we contribute only 5 per cent to global emissions. We are contributing very readily to the overall issue of handling climate change because we believe in it,” the Foreign Secretary said.

 

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