Told Indian govt it is 'urgent' to raise climate ambitions further: Kerry

US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerryon Tuesday said he has told the Indian government it is urgent to raise climate ambitions further and that he's confident that it will make some announcement going to the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow.

He also said that if India succeeds in deploying 450 gigawatts of renewables by 2030, it will be a major contribution by a developing country towards efforts to keep the world's temperature increase held at 1.5 degrees Celsius.

And I personally urge that the government think about frankly announcing that as part of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), he said.

 

Kerry is on a three-day visit to India for talks to address the climate crisis as he tries to align the US efforts ahead of the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which will be held from October 31 to November 12 in Glasgow, United Kingdom.

I said to them this is urgent. We have to get this done. People have not said to me explicitly no or yes. I did not meet with anybody who said that's a crazy idea and we are not going to do that, Kerry told reporters at a press roundtable here when questioned if he asked the Indian government to raise its climate ambitions further.

Internal deliberations need to take place in India to make that decision. I am confident India is going to announce one thing or another going to COP as will many other nations you haven't heard from yet, he said.

Kerry said the two sides did not spend a lot of time discussing Net Zero and they focused on what they need to do now.

If you don't care enough by 2030, Net Zero is not achievable We really focused on the concept of NDC and what we all can do to help deploy 450 GW (of renewable energy), he said.

A net-zero target means balancing out the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted into the environment by removing an equivalent volume.

This may be achieved by various modes, including restoring forests or through direct air capture and storage (DACS) technology, according to the World Resources Institute.

The discussions I had with folks here was about how we do this together. How do we work in order to raise the ambitions and how do we help you with your 450 GW, he said.

Kerry said India is already ahead of a lot of countries in the deployment of renewables.

He said the US wants to work very closely with India and do whatever it can to help accelerate the deployment of 450 GW of renewable energy.

Why? Because it's a big number and it's an ambitious goal and if India succeeds in that deployment, it will be a major contribution by a developing country to the efforts to keep the world's temperature increase held at 1.5 degrees Celsius, he said.