Climate deal: India welcomes final draft after French President apprises Modi of latest talks

Le Bourget: India on Saturday welcomed the final draft of an ambitious climate deal as "balanced" and said its concerns have been taken care of in the document.

The climate change conference came out with an ambitious final draft of a deal that proposes limiting global warming to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius and committing USD 100 billion a year from 2020 to help developing countries in coping with the problem.

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said the differentiation between developed and developing countries, which India has been demanding, is mentioned across all the pillars of action including mitigation, adaptation, finance and access to technology.

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Terming it as an "important achievement" for India, Javadekar said that "sustainable lifestyles and climate justice" which have been espoused by it also get a mention in the final 31-page draft.

He said French President Francois Hollande also called Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the final draft text was unveiled.

"After the first glace of the final text, we are happy that the text contains and take care of concerns of India. It is linked with the convention (United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) while Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) is imbibed in it," Javadekar said

"More importantly, differentiation for developed and developing countries are mentioned across all pillars of action -- mitigation, adaption, finance, technology capacity and transparency. That is very important thing," Javadekar said after initial reading of the text.

Javadekar said India has been stressing on two important concepts -- climate justice and sustainable lifestyles – in the last one year.

"More importantly for India Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always espoused cause of sustainable lifestyle and climate justice. Both have found mention in the preamble of the text.

That is an important achievement for India.  These two concepts were put up very forcefully by India in the last one year," he said.

India wants the concept of 'differentiation' to be clearly spelt out in all elements of the agreement and has been taking the position that developed countries must have a greater responsibility to accept emission reduction targets while they must be the only ones to mandatorily provide financial resources.

Ahead of voting on the crucial final draft at the climate meet in Paris, French President Francois Hollande had called Prime Minister Narendra Modi to apprise him of the latest status of negotiations at the meet.

"As #COP21 enters final stage, President Hollande calls PM @narendramodi to apprise him of latest status. PM appreciated the gesture," the External Affairs Ministry spokesperson tweeted.