Climate conference outcome balanced except on climate finance issues: Javadekar

Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Friday that except for climate finance issues, India considers the outcome of COP 25 at Madrid as 'a balanced outcome,' which addresses concerns of all parties including developing countries and provides necessary building blocks for successful implementation of Paris Agreement.

Addressing a press conference here, Javadekar, who is Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, said India engaged constructively in the negotiations while protecting its key interests including principles of equity and Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC).

India also laid stress on climate finance, technology transfer at affordable cost and capacity building support from developed to developing countries in accordance with their obligations under the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and Paris Agreement.

He said that India's efforts to mitigate climate change and to conserve the environment was appreciated at the Conference of Parties to UNFCCC and it will achieve the carbon emission target soon.

He said the emission intensity reduction target for India was 35 per cent and it has already achieved 21 per cent of it.

The minister said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has increased target for renewable energy from 175 GW to 450 GW at the recent UN Climate Action Summit and India is simultaneously progressing on solar, biomass and wind energy.

The minister said no decision was taken at the summit which was against the interests and stand of India and India worked in coordination with BASIC countries and like-minded developing countries.

An official release said that COP 25 decision, titled Chile Madrid Time for Action, emphasises the continued challenges that developing countries face in accessing financial, technology and capacity-building support.

It recognises the urgent need to enhance the provision of support to developing countries for strengthening their national adaptation and mitigation efforts.

The decision also recalls the commitment made by developed countries to a goal of mobilizing jointly USD 100 billion per year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries.

The release said that on pre-2020 gaps in commitments and actions of developed countries under the Kyoto Protocol, India, along with other developing countries, was successful in ensuring further work on it.

The COP 25 decision provides for assessing the pre-2020 gaps through round tables at COP 26 in Glasgow with written submissions from the concerned parties.

UNFCCC secretariat will prepare a summary report of the pre-2020 gaps in mitigation action and means of implementation support by developed countries that had commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.

The summary of these roundtables will serve as an input for the second periodic review of the long-term global goal under the convention, which will start in 2020 and conclude in 2022.

The decision on periodic review ensures that it will assess the overall aggregated effect of the steps taken by parties.

The release said that guidance for Article 6 for market and non-market mechanisms could not be agreed due to divergences among parties.

"India was successful in protecting its key positions in the last draft decision text presented including on transition of Clean Development Mechanism under Kyoto Protocol to the post-2020 period and provision of a share of proceeds from market mechanisms as well as cooperative approaches for adaptation fund," the release said.

India insisted that fundamental principles of market reliability and parity between Article 6.2 and Article 6.4 must be preserved.

"India's concerns are reflected in the draft texts that will be negotiated in further meetings of the COP. India argued for incentivizing private sector through Article 6.4 with adequate returns without the requirement of adjusting Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) that are country driven," the release said.