G20 meet: India asks rich nations not to shift goalposts for global climate ambition, deliver on pre-2020 promises

NEW DELHI: Amid a clamour for higher mitigation targets to reach the intended goal of the Paris Agreement, India on Friday reminded the rich nations (historical polluters) of their unfulfilled pre-2020 promises and asked them to first deliver on what they had pledged instead of “shifting goalposts” and "setting new benchmarks".


“We should not be shifting goalposts and setting new benchmarks for global climate ambition,” said environment minister Bhupender Yadav while articulating India’s position at the c ministerial meeting on climate change in Naples, Italy.


Making his virtual intervention on the concluding day of the meet, he said, “The world has waited long enough for the delivery of promised climate finance and technologies at low cost.”

The reference was clearly towards the rich nations’ failure to provide the promised amount of $100 billion annually to support adaptation needs of developing countries, a commitment made in the UNFCCC process more than a decade ago. Many of them even did not deliver on reducing their ‘mandatory’ pre-2020 emission target with the US, the biggest historical polluter, being completely out of the Kyoto Protocol that guided climate action till 2020.

As participating countries, mainly from Europe, pitched for a need for revising mitigation targets to reach ‘net-zero’ emission goal (reducing emission of greenhouse gases to zero) by mid-century, Indian delegation made it clear that the momentum of climate action can only be accelerated when there is enough financial and technological support from the developed countries.

Indian side expressed its concerns, saying new benchmarks for global climate ambition are being proposed while the promised support, on the basis of which developing countries have taken ambitious targets and had ratified the Paris Agreement, was not delivered by the rich industrialised nations.



The Indian delegation, led by Yadav, at the same time also flagged how India, on the other hand, has exhibited exemplary resolve by achieving its pre-2020 voluntary commitment of reducing emission intensity.

Though India stated that the country remained steadfast in its commitments to join and lead efforts to combat climate change, it underlined that the need to cut absolute emissions must be in tune with the Paris Agreement which emphasised on respective historical responsibilities, delivery of promised climate finance and technologies at low cost keeping in view per capita emissions, differences in per capita GDP and the unfinished agenda for sustainable development.

As participants such as the US, UK and the EU nations continued to push for bringing China and India on board for higher targets, the Indian delegation flagged how its ambitious goal of installing 450 GW of renewable energy by 2030 and enhanced ambition in using biofuels as part of its climate action would help the country overachieve its Paris deal argets. They also explained how India has been well on track to meet what it had promised as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement in 2015.

Noting that the G20 nations together account for 80% of all global emissions, the UN climate change executive secretary Patricia Espinosa called on countries to provide the necessary leadership to achieve the central goal of the Paris Agreement, which is to hold the global average temperature rise to as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“There is no path to 1.5 degree C without the G20. Climate change is, without exception, detrimental to that goal. It is therefore in the best interests of all G20 nations to harness its collective diversity to build consensus and work in a unity of purpose to address the most significant challenge standing in the path of that goal,” she said while addressing environment and energy ministers of G20 nations in Naples.

While calling on G20 nations to show leadership by presenting more ambitious NDCs in line with science, she also reminded the developed countries of their pledge to mobilize $100 billion annually to developing nations by 2020.

“It’s time to deliver. How can we expect nations to make more ambitious climate commitments for tomorrow if today’s have not yet been met?”, she said. So far, 97 countries have submitted their NDCs which are national climate action plans under the Paris Agreement.