Bainimarama asks Modi on the eve of Diwali, to gift the world a more ambitious 2030 and net zero commitment

Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama says he is asking his friend, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the eve of Diwali, to gift the world a more ambitious 2030 and net zero commitment.

Bainimarama has tweeted from Glasgow while attending the COP26 that today, Indian-donated vaccines are actively saving Fijian lives from COVID-19.

He says to save lives from climate change tomorrow, he is asking Modi to gift the world net zero commitment.

Meanwhile The Indian Express reports that Modi has announced that India would make a one billion-tonne reduction in projected emissions from now until 2030.

Making five big-ticket announcements at the climate change meeting in Glasgow — he called it ‘Panchamrit’ — Modi also accepted global demands to agree to a net-zero emissions target, setting a 2070 date to achieve it.

 Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. [image: Indian Express]

India is currently the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, releasing over 3 billion tonnes every year.

According to World Resources Institute database, India’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2018 was about 3.3 billion tonnes, up from 2.5 billion tonnes in 2010. At this rate, India’s projected emissions between now and 2030 could be in the range of 30 to 32 billion tonnes.

But India’s emissions are rising, at about 4 to 5% every year. So the total emissions between now and 2030 is expected to be much higher, in the range of about 40 billion tonnes. It is in this amount, that a one billion tonne reduction has been announced.

India’s new targets are expected to provide a fresh thrust to the climate talks which has been making extremely slow progress for the last few days for the lack of more ambitious action mainly from the developed world.

Of particular concern was the failure of the developed world to deliver on its decade old promise of mobilizing at least US$100 billion every year from 2020. That deadline was pushed back last week by at least three years.

Modi took the developed countries to task on this, and said the US$100 billion was not even enough and must be enhanced substantially.

He says when they are all increasing their ambition on climate actions, then the ambition on climate finance cannot remain the same that it was at the time of the Paris Agreement, asking the developed world to commit one trillion dollars every year.

Earlier, Boris Johnson, who as Prime Minister of the host country has been pushing hard for an outcome that could prove decisive in the fight against climate change, said the impatience of young people would become unbearable if the world failed to make Glasgow a turning point, and “a moment that we get real about climate change”.

Borrowing a description from climate activist Greta Thunberg, Johnson even said all the promises made at the previous climate meetings would become nothing more than “blah blah blah” if Glasgow did not deliver something more meaningful.