Will support real climate action, serious climate justice: India at UN meeting on 'Climate Finance for Sustaining Peace and Security'

Speaking at the United Nations Security Council Arria Formula Meeting, India's Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, R Ravindra said: "We will always speak up for the interest of the developing world, including Africa, the Sahel region, and Small Island Developing States. And we will do so at the place it deserves -- the UNFCCC."

He said that India is second to none when it comes to climate action.

"Our Prime Minister made ambitious commitments in Glasgow CoP over and above the commitments made earlier. India is probably the only G20 country on course to meet its 2030 Paris targets. The UN-led UNFCCC, which has near-universal membership, has been the main driver over the years to take all of us collectively forward, guided by principles and provisions agreed to by all," the Deputy Permanent Representative said.

"It represents a balanced global democratic effort where there are a concrete commitment from developed countries as well as genuine requirement on developing countries," he said.

"We will resist any attempt to take climate change out of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and discuss it separately without these principles and provisions," he said.

India further said that developed countries have fallen short of their promises not just on mitigation but also on providing access to climate finance and technologies.

Affordable access to climate finance and technologies is critical to move forward on climate action. "Developed countries must provide climate finance of 1 trillion dollars at the earliest," he said.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate Report released last week states that the "climate finance for adaptation is sufficient and constrains the implementations of adaptation; and that globally tracked climate finance is targeted at mitigation and only a small proportion towards adaptation."

"We recognized that fact that climate change may have exacerbated conflicts in a certain part of Africa and Sahel. But viewing conflicts only through the prism of climate change is misleading. Oversimplification of causes of conflict will not help in resolving them," Ravindra said. (ANI)