‘A Clarion Call for Developed Countries’: India on IPCC Climate Report

'The report reaffirms India’s stand that historical cumulative emissions are the source of current climate crisis.'

The Indian government on Monday, 9 August, welcomed the latest global climate change assessment report by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The report, released by the IPCC on Monday, is titled Climate Change 2021: the Physical Science and is the sixth such report released by the IPCC since it was constituted. The reports are aimed at providing a scientific analysis of global climate change for policy makers around the world.

In a series of tweets, Union Minister for Environment, Bhupender Yadav, said that the report is a "clarion call for developed countries to undertake 'immediate, deep emission cuts and decarbonisation of their economies."

India under the visionary leadership of PM Shri @narendramodi ji has taken numerous steps to tackle the global problem of climate change and is well on the path of decoupling its emissions from economic growth. The IPCC report is proof of that.

— Bhupender Yadav (@byadavbjp) August 9, 2021

"The report reaffirms India’s position that historical cumulative emissions are the source of the current climate crisis. Our cumulative and per capita emissions are significantly low and far less than the fair share of global carbon budget," Yadav added.

The IPCC's report found that averaged over the next 20 years, global temperature is expected to reach or exceed 1.5°C of warming. The report also states that emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are responsible for approximately 1.1°C of warming since 1850-1900.

It added that there were "no pathways" to contain global temperature rise to less than 1.5°C in the next few decades without crossing that threshold later. However, it may be possible to bring down global temperatures after crossing that threshold by the end of the century.

An observation in the report that was of particular importance to India is that of monsoon patterns in South Asia.

"In the long term, South and Southeast Asian monsoon and East Asian summer monsoon precipitation will increase," said the report.

"Developed countries have usurped far more than their fair share of the global carbon budget. Reaching net zero alone is not enough, as it is the cumulative emissions up to net zero that determine the temperature that is reached," said a statement by the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

"The report brings out that the monsoon rainfall is expected to intensify in all ranges of the projected scenarios. Intensity and frequency of heavy rainfall events are projected to be on the rise. India notes that the rising temperature will lead to increased frequency and intensity of extreme events including heatwaves and heavy rainfall," it added.