Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday pledged to cut India’s net carbon emissions to zero by 2070, even as he exhorted developed countries to make available funds to the tune of $1 trillion for climate adaptation and mitigation.
Speaking at the Conference of Parties (COP-26) summit in Glasgow, Modi said India, the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, would scale up its non-fossil energy generation capacity to 500GW by 2030, meet 50% of its energy requirements from renewables by the same deadline, bring down its total projected carbon emission by 1 billion tonnes by 2030 and also bring down the carbon intensity of the economy to below 45% by the end of the decade.
“Today, when India has made a new commitment with new energy to move forward with its promises at a time like this, climate finance and low-cost climate technology becomes more important,” Modi said.
India hopes that developed countries make available $1 trillion for climate finance, he said. Modi’s surprise statement announcing India’s commitment to net-zero emission by 2070 may take some pressure off from Asia’s third-largest economy to help stop global warming. In the run-up to Glasgow, India had shown signs of shying away from committing to a date by which it would achieve net-zero and not updated its Nationally Determined Contributions—pledges given by a country to bring down its GHGs.
Modi was greeted by his British counterpart Boris Johnson on his arrival at the Scottish Exhibition Centre to attend the opening ceremony of the COP26 climate summit, where he delivered the national statement.
