India remained absent from a major international diplomatic conference held in London this week, which was conducted to evaluate the rapidly devastating climate change. This was despite the nation being the third biggest emitter of polluted gases in the world.
Among the 51 countries invited for the two-day ministerial event in the United Kingdom, India was the only one that failed to attend. As per attendees of the summit who chose to be anonymous, the meeting was hosted by the new President of the COP26 United Nations talks.
The event was conducted for planning the groundwork for COP26’s success that will take place after 3 months in Glasgow. This will be the last chance to make sure that global temperature increases don’t pass 1.5 degrees Celsius, which is the lower limit of the Paris Agreement. In a meeting between Group of 20 held last week, India remained the major holdout as it refused to accept a more ambitious agreement on climate.
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The recent London conference, an in-person event, was a follow-up of the Group 20 meeting with more attendees. According to a statement released from Sharma’s office earlier, India was slated to be a part of the same.
Defending India’s absence from the summit, a spokesperson for India’s Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Gaurav Khare, said the Central government chose not to attend the event as India had educated all about its views during the G-20 in Naples. Technical difficulties stopped the nation from attending the virtual event as well.
A spokeswoman for COP26 had said Sharma “has a constructive ongoing dialogue with his counterparts in India” after meeting PM Modi in the country earlier in 2021.
According to one of the invitees at the London event, the COP Presidency consumed India’s failure to show up as an insult. It is further going to mount pressure on China and India to eliminate their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, given all Group of Seven nations have already committed to it.
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In the final communique from the conference last week, its footnote said India refused to acknowledge the language agreed on net-zero emissions. Instead, the country criticized those countries that have pledged to reach a net-zero carbon by 2050. India often pushes the richer countries to cut down their emissions first. It also urged the G-20 nations to make promises on per-capita emissions.
Though India is the third-biggest emitter, it stands second in the most populous countries of the world. Due to this, the Global Carbon Atlas project has ranked it 134, as per head emissions are very low.
