Ahead of the crucial climate summit in Paris, India today called for utilising part of the Green Climate Fund for making critical technologies available to developing nations at affordable costs, saying it will be a "win-win" proposal for all stakeholders.
Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar stressed that research and development of green technologies must become part of the business plan of companies.
"Research and development must also become part of the business plan, which carries a certain risk, but also generates tremendous profits for the companies," Javadekar said in his intervention at the second meeting of the Business Dialogue for COP-21 held at UNFCCC here yesterday.
"The real issue is how to make available the critical technologies for the developing world at an affordable cost. To this end, India is proposing that part of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) should be used for this purpose, which will be a win-win proposal for all the stakeholders," Javadekar said.
The GCF was set up under the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and developed countries had committed to raise USD 100 billion each year by 2020 to help developing countries deal with climate change.
Noting that most of the countries in the world are ready with their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) with the commitment of working for green growth, Javadekar stressed that industries should invest more in research and development.
"Carbon pricing is a major issue but we should not forget that it is a function of demand and supply. The world is now ready with respective INDCs with the resolve of each country to work in the direction of green growth," Javadekar said.
"Thus, the signal for the industry is positive and they should invest more and more for research and development," he said.
INDCs are voluntary pledges that countries are making to cut carbon pollution ahead of UN climate meet in Paris at the end of the year. India is also likely to submit its INDC very soon.
Javadekar said the world must "incentivise" green growth activities as "Green Credit" instead of Carbon Credit Mechanism (CCM) which he said provides a way out for the emitter to get rid of the blame of pollution by paying for the emissions.
India, the minister said, has put forward new ideas and proposed debate on lifestyle issues, climate justice and green credit mechanism.
