“India will do it on Gandhi Jayanti on October 2”, Modi said while addressing the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) National Council meet here, noting Gandhi lived his life with a minimum “Carbon footprint”.
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The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) was held in November-December 2015 in Paris, where 191 parties, including India, adopted the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal, out of the total 197 parties to the convention. It had submitted its ‘Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) to the United Nations body on October 1, 2015 and later made it public the next day coinciding it with the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Besides India, the other countries who have announced to join the Paris Agreement through formal ratification this year include Austria, Australia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Hungary, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Poland, and the Republic of Korea.
India accounts for around 4.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Talking about the need to ratify the COP21 decision, Modi said there is a looming threat due to global warming to many coastal countries and cities.
While Western countries, including the U.S., had been supporting an early ratification of the pact, India had been seeking more time to complete its national processes as it fears that any hasty decision may impact its developmental projects.
The Agreement will enter into force 30 days after 55 countries, representing 55% of global emissions+, deposit their instruments of ratification, acceptance or accession with the UN Secretary-General.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared on September 21 that more than 55 countries have formally joined the Paris Agreement on climate change signed by world leaders this past April, according to a UN press release.
The countries who have now signed the Agreement represent 48 percent of emissions.
The accord requires all countries to devise plans to achieve the goal of keeping the rise of temperatures within 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels.
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With the Paris Agreement on climate change poised to take effect, diplomats now head to Morocco to hammer out the hard details of how to make it work and raise the $100 billion needed each year to meet its ambitious goals.
