New Delhi, Apr 15 (Mayank Nigam) Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav called upon the developed countries to descale carbon emissions, if they want to achieve global goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. Addressing the Plenary Session at G7 Ministers’ Meeting on Climate, Energy and Environment in Sapporo, Japan he said this will provide space for countries like India to achieve the development required for its people and provide necessary defence against the impacts of climate change, environmental degradation and pollution. Energy and environment ministers of the Group of Seven wealthy nations met on Saturday in northern Japan, seeking to reconcile the world’s heavy reliance on fossil fuels with the urgency of ending carbon emissions to stave off the worst consequences of climate change.
The meetings in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo are aimed at forging a consensus on the best way forward, ahead of the G-7 summit in Hiroshima in May. “Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, there has been an enormous disproportionate emission of GHGs to achieve economic growth and development” he said. Bhupender Yadav said the IPCC AR 6 Report re emphasises that development is our first defence against climate change. “The Report reinforces the scientific view that CO2 is the primary GHG that needs to be drastically reduced to achieve the global temperature goal as agreed in the Paris Agreement” he said. He said over-exploitation of natural resources has also led to widespread environmental degradation.
“This has come at the cost of altering the balance of nature, putting at serious risk the existence of Planet Earth,” he added. Yadav said that in order to save the planet from the challenges of climate change, pollution, loss of biodiversity, collective action guided by the founding principles of the Rio Conventions are required. He said some progress has been made collectively through the process of UNFCCC, CBD, UNCCD. “However, there is an urgent need for greater action to deal with the three challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, he added. The Union Minister said developing countries also need the means of implementation, finance and technology. He said we do hope that the Developed Countries will make good their commitments on finance for combating climate change and provide for the same for dealing with the environmental degradation and biodiversity loss.
“Our actions have so far focused on creating a policy framework to combat climate change. It is time that governments across the world focus on making this a participative process at the level of individuals” he said. The Union Minister said individual actions have the potential of bringing about a revolution. At COP 27 in Sharm el Sheikh, the importance of sustainable lifestyles and sustainable patterns of consumption and production to combat climate change was underscored, he noted. According to the ‘Global Carbon Budget Report- 2022’, more than half of the world’s CO2 emissions in 2021 were from three places- China (31 per cent), the US (14 per cent), and the European Union (eight per cent). Ranking fourth, India accounted for seven per cent of global CO2 emissions.