It is the most sobering and unequivocal assessment of the climate crisis threatening planet Earth. The inter-governmental panel on Climate Change, which is the top authority on climate science in the world, has ditched its usual cautious commentary.

The tone in the latest report has made some definitive statements, and one quote, “Human beings are causing climate change. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe, and climate change will impact every nook and corner of the planet.”

Then the United Nations has termed this report as ‘Code Red’ for humanity.

India's Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav has welcomed the report and said that India has taken many steps to decouple its economic growth from emissions. But, he has also added that this report is a clarion call for developed nations to immediately cut emissions and decarbonise their economies.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18’s Latha Venkatesh; Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) Secretary R P Gupta discussed about the IPCC report on climate change and India's reaction.

Gupta said, “The government of India has been taking number of steps pertaining to carbon emission and emissions in general. Last step, of course, has nothing much to do with climate change or carbon emissions but it has a lot to do with the environment in general and the pollution of the ground water and marine pollution in general. So, this is not the first step but plenty of steps we have taken.”

He added, “The steps like making the renewal purchase obligations, increasing the energy efficiency which ultimately cuts down the emissions. Schemes like Ujala where the crore of bulbs are given a very cheaper rate. It has cut down the energy consumption and in turn cut down the emissions. We have been increasing the 02:38--forest and tree covers which act as carbon sink. So, there are a series of steps which have been taken by the government to make our development more and more low carbon trajectory.”

Talking about India’s contribution, Gupta said, “IPCC report itself has said that it is not due to any particular country. Our total contribution in the total emissions so far are only to the tune of about 4 percent. And the extreme events like ferocity of monsoon, heat affects also these are not due to this 4 percent only, these are due to the 100 percent by different countries where the advanced countries are the major contributors.”

On net zero emissions, Gupta said, “Government is still considering what positions to take as far as the net zero neutrality by India. We are quite clear about it that it has to be net negative by the developed countries and developing countries will still require some carbon space for our development. Date of course we are not yet decided whether to give any date for our carbon neutrality.”

For full interview, watch accompanying video...

(Edited by : Bivekananda Biswas)

First Published:Aug 16, 2021 9:29 PM IST