'Paris deal should reflect differentiated responsibilities'

The developing countries' bloc of Brazil, South Africa, India and China have underscored that the ambitious Paris Agreement on climate change to be adopted later this year should "fully reflect" differentiated responsibilities of developed and developing countries.
Developed countries should take the lead by undertaking ambitious emission reduction targets, ministers from the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) bloc said as they met for the 20th Ministerial Meeting on Climate Change here over the weekend.
India was represented by Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change Ravi Prasad along with Brazil's Minister for the Environment Izabella Teixeira, South African Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa and Special Representative for Climate Change Affairs of China Xie Zhenhua.

In a joint statement issued after the ministerial, the ministers underscored the need for the Paris Agreement to address in a balanced manner all six elements identified in the Durban mandate - mitigation, adaptation, finance, capacity-building, technology development and transfer, transparency of action and support.
In this regard, they stressed that an ambitious outcome of the ADP (Durban Platform for Enhanced Action) should not focus solely on mitigation, but should also address the other elements in a balanced and comprehensive manner.
"With regards to mitigation, Ministers underscored the need for the provisions of the agreement to fully reflect differentiated responsibilities and distinct development stages of developed and developing countries, with developed countries taking the lead by undertaking ambitious, economy- wide, absolute emission reduction targets and providing finance and technology support to developing countries," the statement said.

It added that developing countries will also enhance their efforts, in the context of sustainable development, enabled and supported by finance, technology development and transfer and capacity-building from developed countries.