'Phase down' coal not our language in climate deal, can't be blamed: India

The words were already there in the text of the climate conference in Glasgow, government officials say.

India said on Wednesday it was being “unfairly blamed” for getting the words “phase out” coal changed to “phase down” in the final agreement of the UN COP26 climate conference last week, news organisations reported.

"Phase down" was not India's language and was introduced by the US and China, unnamed government sources told PTI. The words were already there in the text of the conference in Glasgow, the sources told the news agency.

The Glasgow Climate Pact states that the use of "unabated coal should be phased down", as should subsidies for fossil fuels. Several countries have charged India with making the wording weaker than the initial proposals.

PTI reports the sources said that some countries objected to the initial text of "phasing out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies" after which a consensus was reached among the parties and a new text was arrived at which contained the term "phase down" instead of "phase out".

"It was the Chair of the COP 26, Alok Sharma, who had asked India to introduce the new text on the floor," a government official told PTI, adding that it was "unfair" to blame India.

Separately, the Indian Express quoted a civil servant of the external affairs ministry as saying: “It is not a term that India either proposed or tabled [for the first time]. It [term] was already there [in circulation], we simply accepted it.”

The two-week conference in Scotland delivered a major win in resolving rules around carbon markets, but did little to assuage vulnerable countries’ concerns about long-promised climate financing from rich nations, said Reuters after the agreement was announced.