Australia won't give to UN Green Climate Fund

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said governments should judge for themselves whether bilateral action to reduce the impact of climate change on developing countries was a more efficient use of aid money than donating through the UN.

"The Green Climate Fund is about supporting developing countries build resilience to climate change. Australia is already doing that through our aid programme," Bishop told before leading the Australian delegation to Lima for a UN climate summit.

"From my experience, bilateral work is able to customise responses when we're working directly with another partner country," she said.

Rich countries have pledged about USD 10 billion to the recently launched Green Climate Fund, which is meant to become a key source of finance to help developing countries deal with rising seas, higher temperatures and extreme weather events.

Australia has been accused of setting a poor example for other countries by failing to contribute to the fund. Bishop's government has also been criticized for abolishing Australia's carbon tax that was levied on the country's worst greenhouse gas polluters until July.

Bishop said Australia was on track to achieve its target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to 12 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

But she said the Australian delegation would not give the Lima meeting any proposed Australian emission-cutting targets for beyond 2020.

"The message that I will be presenting on Australia's behalf is that the new agreement should establish a common playing field for all countries to take climate action from 2020 and seek commitments from all the major economies to reducing emissions," she said.

Delegates from more than 190 countries will be in Lima trying to lay the groundwork for a global emissions pact they hope will be adopted in Paris next year.

Bishop said that without legally binding commitments in Paris to reduce global emissions beyond 2020, any agreement would amount to nothing more than aspirations. She said Australia wants to see the details of a US-China emissions deal that was struck last month.

New targets for fossil fuel use were announced ahead of the climate conference by the European Union, US and China, the first Asian nation to make such a pledge. This has injected optimism into negotiations that are supposed to climax in Paris with the adoption of a long-awaited climate pact.

But Australia, India, Russia and Japan have yet to commit to new limits. Scientists say much sharper emissions cuts are needed in coming decades to keep global warming within 2 degrees C of pre-industrial times, the overall goal of the UN talks.

Source: Utter Pradesh News and Bihar News 

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Developed countries should compensate for emissions: India

Susheel Kumar, interim head of the Indian delegation, said India's goal on adaptation during the UN climate change summit talks here is for it "to be there in the entire text."

"We would also like a long-term global goal for adaptation to be clearly articulated in qualitative and
quantitative terms." Kumar said, adding that "for a developing country, adaptation becomes a more immediate need (than mitigation)."

Ministerial-level talks will begin next week which will be attended by Environment Minister Prakash Javedkar on December 7.

"India has always been a strong champion for equity," Kumar said.

India would like developed countries to compensate developing nations for the effects their emissions have had on climate.

India believes that developed countries should be held responsible for their high levels of emissions which have caused harm to developing countries, like itself. That responsibility should come in the form of compensation and a fair 2015 Paris agreement.

He explained that it is "not equitable to talk about what a country is emitting now" because that country could be currently reducing their emissions.

However, Kumar said that fact "does not absolve them of all (past) sins."

He also referred to the Germanwatch's Global Climate Risk Index 2015, a study measuring which countries suffer from the most extreme weather-related events based on data from 1994-2013, as a way to quantify adaptation.

India ranks third behind the Philippines and Cambodia in vulnerability but the index does not take into account India's much larger population compared to the other two countries.

Along with state climate action plans submitted by 29 states to the Parliament, Kumar also mentioned the efforts of the government through the National Adaptation Fund, the goal of which is to provide capacity building, technology and financial support to domestic adaptation projects.

Source: News in Hindi And Newspaper

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