Declaration of the Private Sector on Climate Change a Historic Step, Prakash Javadekar

India CEO Forum on Climate Change Forges Long Standing and Sustainable Partnership between the Government and Private Sector

Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Prakash Javadekar has said, India is on the way forward towards achieving its commitments done at the Paris agreement and the country is acting on its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC’s). Javadekar said that India is among the few countries which is 2 degrees compliant and has taken many decisive actions, in fighting Climate Change, not only at the government level but even at the private level, which shows our commitment and resolve.

Releasing a Declaration on Climate Change signed by 24 key industry captains and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change at the virtual India CEO forum on Climate Change, Mr. Javadekar further said that this declaration (READ) by private sector companies, voluntarily, is a historic step on 5 November 2020.

“World says and preaches many things but to bring into practice is more difficult thing. I think today United Nations ecosystem and UNFCCC will take note of this initiative of India and its corporate world to adhere to and declare plans of their own carbon neutrality.”, said Mr. Javadekar

Addressing the forum, Mr. Javadekar suggested to the corporate world to propagate and report to the government what steps and initiatives they are taking towards decarbonisation and bring to the government’s notice polluting activities for us to take action. “We have to be on the same page regarding our insistence on financial and technological support from the advanced economies, so that India can also catch up and march ahead”, stressed the Environment Minister.

The event saw CEO’s and various heads of key industries like TATA, Reliance, the Adani group, Mahindra, Sun pharma, Dr. Reddy’s etc. listing out various clean processes and initiatives they have taken and their agenda towards further decarbonisation post 2020. The corporate sector espoused confidence and expressed their support towards a coordinated response by the Government and private sector on climate change which will help protect the country’s interests and ensure that India is on track towards meeting its climate change obligations under the Paris Agreement.

The private sector plays a pivotal role in creating low-carbon sustainable economies and has embarked on a number of voluntary actions on climate change that can contribute towards achieving India’s NDC goals. The private sector also benefitted from India’s participation in Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol and going forward Article 6 of the Paris Agreement offers further opportunities for meeting the climate change and sustainable development objectives.

India is a signatory to the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. As part of its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), India has three quantitative climate change goals viz. reduction in the emissions intensity of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 33 to 35 percent by 2030 from 2005 level, achieving about 40 percent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel based energy resources by 2030 and creating an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.