Centre to release its ‘green target’

New Delhi: After espousing the cause of ‘climate justice’ at the United Nations last week, where India clearly indicated it won’t give in to developed nations’ pressure on checking its emission levels, the government is likely to focus on greater usage of renewable energy when it discloses the country’s emission targets on Friday.

As a run-up to the prestigious UN climate conference in Paris in December this year, all nations were due to come out with emission targets by September 30. India had told the UN it would officially release this Friday, on Gandhi Jayanti.

With the United States and other developed nations raising climate change concerns, and US President Barack Obama discussing it with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at their recent New York meeting, Mr Modi too at his UN speech last week urged developed nations to first contain their emission levels before putting pressure on poor nations. Mr Modi also said a shift to renewable energy was needed.

When minister of state for environment and forests Prakash Javadekar officially releases India’s emission targets in New Delhi on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will simultaneously be inaugurating a district court compound in Khunti, Jharkhand, that will be fully operated through solar energy.

This clearly sends out the message that India bats for a switch towards renewable energy, and sources said the clean energy targets released on Friday are likely to have an emphasis on this.

By mooting the concept of climate justice, India has taken up a pole position of developing and poor nations, and thus New Delhi will have the backing of African and Latin American nations, official sources said. Climate justice also means insulating poor nations from natural disasters, and thus the concept was well received by developing nations, they added.

The United States and other rich nations, by committing drastic cuts in emission levels, have been putting pressure on nations like India to follow suit. For this, Washington and New Delhi have even formed a joint working group to discuss climate change.

The US pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically by 2025, and even China plans to cut down massively on carbon emissions. According to estimates, India’s per capita emission is 1.7 whereas that of the US is 16 or 17, this itself gives a clear picture of the situation.