India pitches for finance & technology for developing nations

India today strongly pitched for finance and technology for developing nations from developed countries to deal with challenges posed by climate change, amidst intense negotiations here to agree on a new ambitious and binding deal to cut global carbon emissions.
Speaking at the High-Level Ministerial Dialogue on Climate Finance here, Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar also suggested ways to enhance global climate finance, a key demand of the developing countries.
Investors from developed countries stand to gain by utilising these commercial opportunities, he said, referring to India's recently announced plans to scale up actions for clean air, water, rivers, energy and habitations.

"This will be beyond the resources from the USD 100 billion in global public climate finance by 2020 that I have talked about as a minimum for global efforts," he said.
"My argument is that developed countries need to think much more innovatively to collectively tap their financial markets, their long-term pension funds and bond markets, reducing costs and risks, and bring this financing and join our national efforts, as in other developing countries.
"This cannot be a substitute for predictable public climate finances of a sufficient size, but is a complementary way," he said.

Noting that finance is a key enabler of ambition and action, he said, "If there is no clear roadmap in the provision of public resources by developed countries to provide new and additional financial resources approaching USD 100 billion annually by 2020 and rising thereafter, then outcomes will be sub-optimal for a safer world."

The minister said the need for finance and technology support as a key element under the "Intended Nationally Determined Contributions" (INDCs) cannot be overstated.
The range of actions is not limited to mitigation alone, but also to all other areas, including adaptation, he said.
Noting that the Green Climate Fund (GCF) cannot do everything given its limited size, he said, "That is why the need of quickly moving to the goal of USD 100 billion annually by 2020 is so crucial for everything we are discussing at Lima and in the run-up to 2015" Paris summit.