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BASIC nations push for ‘climate finance’
Why is it in news?
- Ahead of the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) in December.
- Environment Ministers and top climate change negotiators from Brazil, South Africa, China and India (BASIC) convened in Delhi and said the countries — as a group — would continue to push for developed countries on their earlier commitment to providing $100 billion annually from 2020.
Climate finance
- So far only a fraction of these monies have actually been provided, the BASIC group stated.
- This year’s edition of the COP — the 24th such meeting — will see representatives from at least 190 countries, think-tanks, and activists converge in Katowice, Poland from December 2 to 14 to try to agree on a Rule Book that will specify how countries will agree to take forward commitments taken at the 21st COP in Paris in 2015.
- At that meeting, countries had agreed to take steps to limit global warming to 2C below pre-industrial levels and “as far as possible” limit it to 1.5C before the end of the century.
- A key aspect to make this possible is climate finance, but countries so far aren’t agreed on what constitutes climate finance: do investments made by private companies in developed countries in new green technology count? Does improving efficiency in a thermal plant count?
- The NDCs are the commitments made by countries to adapt to climate change and reduce emissions.
- The fact is that, on the ground, there is not much development on providing finance
- In the run-up to the climate conference, India has had meetings with several countries to firm up a key plank of the forthcoming negotiations on transparency.
- That is, what would be the mechanism in place for countries to reporting their emissions inventory, steps taken and how other countries could be certain that this was being done truthfully and that this data passed agree-upon norms of quality.
Source
The Hindu