India's climate pledge 'critically important', says UN climate chief

A strong pledge to curb carbon emissions by India, the world’s third largest polluter, will be “critically important” to a meaningful deal at the crucial UN climate summit in Paris in December, the UN’s climate chief has said. India has so far resisted calls for an ambitious target, citing the millions in the country who do not have access to energy and the need to pull those people out of poverty. Instead, it has suggested that it may make two climate pledges: one that can be achieved with domestic resources, and another that would be possible with financial and technological aid from the developed world. Christiana Figueres said India’s pledge was vital. “It is one of the very large developing countries and it will be very important to see what their trajectory on energy is going to be and, in particular, how they are planning to provide energy to 400 million un-electrified people in india.” India has promised to submit its own lower-carbon blueprint soon, but on Thursday ruled out setting a date for peaking its emissions – as China has done. Rather, the country’s pledge would be “much more ambitious” than the world expected, India’s environment minister, Prakash Javadekar said. So far, 44 countries have sent the UN their offers of emissions cuts, known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), and that number is expected to double by the end of September, taking in 75-80% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Figueres praised China for its INDC which was announced last week. Beijing has promised to peak its emissions before 2030 – and curb carbon intensity by 60-65% from 2005 levels. “It shows the leadership that China has been taking for quite a while both individually in climate negotiations but also as part of a broader effort to work strategically with other countries, for example in collaboration with the US,” she said. Beijing was “pushing the envelope” on environmental measures – and the timing of its announcement during premier Li’s visit to Paris was particularly appreciated, she added. Per capita, China’s emissions at 20 tonnes are around 10 times higher than India’s. Figueres played down suggestions that the Paris deal might include measures to directly curb extraction of fossil fuels – such as an extraction cap on oil from Saudi Arabia. This would not be on the cards, she said, but pointed to statements from Ali al-Naimi, the Saudi oil minister, suggesting a shift to solar energy as soon as 2040 as signs for hope. “They fully understand that they shouldn’t be using their own oil to produce electricity as it is a waste of that resource, and they know that they don’t have an eternal timeline to be using that oil. They need to be moving to understand themselves as an energy exporting country, not just an oil exporting country.” More broadly, the global oil and gas business has been stepping up its lobby efforts ahead of the Paris summit. Earlier this month, Figueres posted a response to a call from the six big European oil and gas majors for more carbon pricing, that was seen by some as her issuing a coded warning to the oil industry not to lobby against a deal at Paris. But she stressed that decisions in Paris would be taken by governments, and not corporates. “You can’t blame the fossil fuel companies for trying to use their relationships with governments for the purposes of their industry. That’s what they’re expected to do. But with the information we now have on climate change – and the effect of fossil fuels on the world’s economic and social stability, it is certainly to be expected that they will want to be a part of the solution,” she said.