India and China will need to explain themselves to poor nations for watering down the Glasgow climate pact at the COP26 conference, the ev...
India and China will need to explain themselves to poor nations for watering down the Glasgow climate pact at the COP26 conference, the event’s president Alok Sharma said on Sunday, reported The Guardian on Sunday.
“We are on the way to consigning coal to history,” he told The Guardian. “This is an agreement we can build on. But in the case of China and India, they will have to explain to climate-vulnerable countries why they did what they did.”
The United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, had decided to phase out the use of coal as a fuel. But, India and China proposed to change the text of the deal from “phase out” use of coal to “phase down” in the Glasgow Climate Pact.
Coal is the most polluting fossil fuel and greenhouse gas emissions from burning it is the biggest contributor to climate change.
Both India and China are heavily dependent on coal. The COP26 had recognised India’s intervention on November 13.
Several countries had opposed the change. However, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav defended India’s push to “phase down” the use of fossil fuels, saying that developing countries could not promise to “phase out” coal and fossil fuel subsidies as they are dealing with the agenda of development.
The Glasgow...
