The countries of the world will once again meet in Paris, under the banner of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The climate change jamboree (around 40,000 participants, representing the countries, observers and civil society members will be attending the meet), the 21st session of the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC and the 11th session of the Conference of Parties, serving as the meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol will take place from November 30 to December 11, in Paris, France.

This time, stakes are high, both for the developed as well as the developing countries. Leaders of the world will try to achieve a universal, legally binding agreement that will enable us to combat climate change effectively and boost the transition towards resilient, low-carbon societies and economies.

Earlier, there had been protracted negotiations on these issues and it would take real statesmanship of the highest order among the world leaders, especially the US, Europe and Canada, to accept the fact that the focus should be equally on how to achieve unified actions on mitigation: Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit global warming to below two degree Celsius, and efforts for adaptations to minimise the impact of climatic vagaries.

These efforts must take into account the fact that the developed countries must realise that they have a much larger responsibility to come to an agreement and that they must recognise the needs and capacities of each country, particularly those fighting poverty and poor economic conditions and at the same time trying hard to upgrade their efforts in mitigation and adaptations.

The agreement will enter into force in 2020 and will need to be sustained to enable long-term change and, therefore, require commitment from the rich countries and other countries as well.

The priority of the meeting should be to finalise the road map on $100 billion per year green climate fund commitment that was made in Copenhagen. So far, the developed countries had only paid lip service to this.

Climate change is a global phenomenon, both in terms of its cause and resultant consequence, and it requires an internationally collective response for cooperation sharing knowledge, shared technology investment and finances and of course, the sustainable economic development of the poorer nations.

Unless the developed countries recognise this, talks on climate change will not move further. We have seen many such jumbo meetings ending in the classical divide of rich and poor, a fact of life since the civilisation grew to the modern level. National negotiators will always prefer dialogue and champagne in the evenings, before they return homes after burning the midnight oil on the draft declarations, but tough and rational decisions must be taken eventually.

As far as climate change is concerned, modern innovative technologies need to be treated as the ‘shared intellectual heritage of the entire humanity’, irrespective of the national boundaries. The use of technology must be directed at the common agenda of mitigation and adaptation of climate change. Technology cannot be used only for commercial purposes. India along with other countries must vigorously promote this idea by expanding the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities’ in the larger interests of humanity, as this concept has evolved from the common heritage of humanity.

International funding as a means to implement differentiated responsibility has a long history, beginning with the United Nations Environment Programme Environmental Fund and the World Heritage Fund. The developed countries should not only commit themselves to raise $100 billion per year by 2020, but increase it to at least three times, to get a visible impact.

The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change had recently announced an ambitious plan to balance the economic development of the country with an aim to reduce emission. India promised to cut emissions intensity of its gross domestic product by 33 per cent to 35 per cent by 2030 from 2005 level.

This is a herculean task and in the next 15 years this may cost the country not less than $2.5 trillion. India plans to spend around two lakh crore rupees in afforestation and increase the non-fossil based share of the energy to 40 per cent in next 15 years. India and other countries have to push the developed nations to what the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called “climate justice” and Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar aptly calls “vacate the carbon space” for developing countries to ensure equity and fairness. Indian NGOs attending this meet should raise their voice vociferously on climate justice and carbon space for the developing world.

The negotiations on the draft declarations to be adopted in the meet between the Governments are on, and this is the time when India must put its foot down even to the extent of threatening to withdraw from such meetings if the stalemate on key issues continues. According to the report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the international energy agency to limiting the global warming to two degree Celsius, the global community had to live with a set carbon budget.

Further, the World Bank had warned that the world is on path to a global warming of four degree Celsius. It is necessary that the global leaders realise the catastrophic consequences of delaying further the affirmative actions.

(The writer is former Director General, Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education, and former Principal Secretary, Agriculture, Horticulture, Animal Resources and Forest Department, Government of Tripura)