- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
RICH nations should commit much more than $100 billion (£74 billion) to help poor countries fight climate change due to their high share of emissions historically, India’s chief economic advisor K V Subramanian on Thursday (30) said, ahead of COP26, the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Reuters reported.
The poor nations are under threat to deliver on a pledge made in 2009 to send $100 billion annually to help finance an adequate response by the developing countries to rising global temperatures as the world gears up for COP26.
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“This $100 billion that the advanced economies are talking about actually for innovation in climate finance, you know, it’s a drop in the ocean,” Subramanian told Reuters.
“I think their commitment needs to be much greater,” he added.
Although India has not yet committed to a net-zero emission target this year, the country – Asia’s third-largest economy – will keep adding renewables to its energy mix and push industries to see the benefit of using cleaner fuels, he added.
Subramanian, who took over in December 2018, said the government was creating incentives for firms to pursue cleaner energy, without which net zero is just “talk without actually the actions happening”.
India has set up more than 100 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy, which accounts for more than 25 per cent of its overall capacity. It plans to raise its green-energy capacity to 450 GW by 2030.
Subramanian said India will do everything that is necessary to attain an average annual economic growth of more than seven per cent and coal-fired plants will be part of the mix, the report added.
India is the planet’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter after China and the US is a vital force in the fight against climate change, which is currently focused on reaching global net zero emissions by around the middle of this century.
The upcoming COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland, is seen as a crucial chance to wring out ambitious commitments from governments to stop global warming spiralling beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius – the limit that scientists say would avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
While China has vowed to become carbon neutral by 2060, US president Joe Biden has promised to cut his country’s emissions 50-52 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.
Reuters has reported in the past citing sources that India was unlikely to commit to a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions goal by 2050.
