Focus: GS-II Environment and Ecology, Prelims
Why in news?
- The 11th session of Petersberg Climate Dialogue witnessed India along with 30 other countries deliberating over ways and means to tackle the challenge of reinvigorating economies and societies after COVID-19, while enhancing collective resilience and catalysing climate action while also supporting in particular those most vulnerable.
- The virtual XI Petersberg Climate Dialogue was co-chaired by Germany and United Kingdom, the incoming Presidency of 26th Conference of Parties (COP 26) to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
- The session was called to provide a forum for informal high-level political discussions, focusing both on international climate negotiations and the advancement of climate action.
Details of what India said in the Discussion
- Today, as the World is unitedly engaged in finding a vaccine for novel Coronavirus, likewise we should have Climate Technology as open source which must be available at affordable cost.
- COVID – 19 has taught us that we can survive on less, the world must think of adopting more sustainable consumption patterns in line with requirement of sustainable lifestyle.
- India’s Nationally Determined Contributions spanning a ten-year time frame are ambitious and are also compliant with the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement.
- The world has an opportunity now to accelerate renewable energy deployment and creating new green jobs in the renewable energy and energy efficiency sector.
Petersberg Climate Dialogue
- The Petersberg Climate Dialogue is a series of annual international conferences at ministerial level that serve as a catalyst for the preparation of the annual UN climate conferences.
- The dialogue was launched after the failed climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009 on the initiative of Germany in order to revitalize the climate protection process.
UNFCCC
- The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international environmental treaty adopted on 9 May 1992, and entered into force on 21 March 1994, after a sufficient number of countries had ratified it.
- The UNFCCC objective is to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.
- The framework sets non-binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions for individual countries and contains NO ENFORCEMENT mechanisms.
- The framework simply outlines how specific international treaties may be negotiated to specify further action towards the objective of the UNFCCC.
- The parties to the convention have met annually from 1995 in Conferences of the Parties (COP) to assess progress in dealing with climate change.
Important Agreements / Treaties / Accords Signed
- In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was concluded and established legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the period 2008–2012. The Protocol was amended in 2012 to encompass the period 2013–2020 in the Doha Amendment.
- In 2002, there was the Delhi Declaration that focuses on the development needs of the poorest countries and the need for technology transfer for mitigating climate change.
- In 2009, Copenhagen Accord was drafted and Developed countries pledged up to USD 30 billion in fast-start finance for the period 2010-2012.
- In 2015 the Paris Agreement was adopted, governing emission reductions from 2020 on through commitments of countries in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), with a view of lowering the target to 1.5 °C, and this agreement entered into force on November 2016.
