India is focusing on international cooperation to empower the global south, according to Bhupender Yadav, Union Minister for Environment, Forests, and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
He said that the country is assessing financial requirements at COP29 to achieve new quantifiable goals.
He said climate finance needs to be defined appropriately in order to support capacity building. To increase capacity, the Ministry of Energy has proposed the idea of a carbon market and launched the Green Climate fund, the minister who recently led a plenary discussion on India’s Road to Net-Zero Emissions, said.
He said, “The path of sustainability has to be chosen for conservation of ecosystem, biodiversity, development of society and for best utilization of human resources. To ensure sustainability, a proper technological and management system has to be created for the world through policy, technological intervention, and capacity building.”
India has significantly reduced its carbon emissions, despite facing challenges such as its unique topography.
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Mr Yadav said that though India constitutes 17% of the world’s population, it only contributes 5% of emissions worldwide. By contrast, in developed nations, 17% of the population accounts for 60% of emissions. He said, “India has made great strides toward lowering carbon emissions, even in the face of obstacles like its uneven terrain.”
Nations should create action plans with equity as a top priority, making sure that everyone has access to prosperity, justice, and health, Mr Yadav said. He said that this strategy will protect natural resources for future generations, advance social justice, and enable inclusive, sustainable economic growth.
He said that India is the only G20 nation to have met two of the three quantitative nationally determined contributions (NDCs) targets of the Paris Agreement nine years ahead of schedule under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
According to the minister, private sector involvement will be essential to bolstering renewable grids, creating low-carbon technology, and handling demand-side problems to meet the net-zero goal by 2070.
“It is necessary to use fossil fuel resources sensibly and carefully, to develop integrated, effective, and inclusive low-carbon transportation systems, and to build sustainable urbanization that takes into account ecological, economic, and inclusive factors,” he said.
The government is pushing for green hydrogen technology, fuel switching, recycling, the circular economy, he said. He said that the focus is also on bio-based policy interventions to strengthening the MSME sector.