Climate talks enter final phase; India promises positivity

Environment Ministers from across the world today converged at Le Bourget for crucial talks in the final leg of the climate summit amid hopes to secure a concrete pact to curb greenhouse gas emissions as a "pro- active" India eyes a stronger say in the high-stakes parleys.

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar flew in to join counterparts from 195 countries to deliberate on the 48-page draft that still contains all the unresolved options on the key issues at stake and will form the basis of efforts to to formulate a binding deal.

As the 12-day climate talks enter its crucial final week, negotiators appeared confident that some kind of deal will be reached before the next weekend and they will be able to avert a repetition of the 2009 Copenhagen summit - that failed miserably.

Analysts said any deal emerging from Paris is likely to fall short of what is needed to cap global warming at 2.0 degrees Celsius or below.

In 2009, rich countries had pledged to mobilise $ 100 billion a year in climate finance for developing nations from 2020. Developing countries including India have been demanding them for early disbursal of the funds and clean technology to mitigate the greenhouse gas pollution.

Yesterday, Javadekar said India is determined not to make the Paris climate meet like past summits where nations returned with "false optimism and fictitious hopes" and would ensure that rich countries pay back their "debt for overdraft" drawn on the carbon space.

India will ensure that the seminal principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) is respected, he said: "For India it is a question of present and future lives of our 1.27 billion people with aspirations to develop. We will not let this meeting fail to reach its objectives.

He had earlier said that "India is going more pro-actively, with more positivity" to participate in the talks.

He said the need of the hour is that the developed world "must walk the talk, must come out with more ambitious numbers for their pre-2020 commitment" and come out with a separate subhead to their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), as today's INDCs of developed world subsume their pre-2020 targets.