Javadekar calls for IPR less collaboration to fight climate change
Javadekar calls for IPR less collaboration to fight climate change
The Minister for MoEF&CC, Shri Prakash Javadekar delivered a statement as well as made an intervention to speak in the High Level ministerial dialogue at Lima and it appeared that he has learnt a thing or two in terms of play of words to create hype from his Prime Minister. He termed COP-20 in Lima as "COP of Hope". He said that as a minister lot of hope of our people rest on his shoulders, hope of achieving a positive outcome to the meeting which will set us on the path to an ambitious, comprehensive and equitable agreement at Paris next year.
Shri Javadekar reminded the conference of the sad fact that 1 in every 7 persons in the world today still lives in abject poverty. The number of poor people in the world is more than twice the combined population of Europe. All of them are in developing countries. He said that India is determined to ensure development to all these people and provide them with basic services of energy, water, sanitation, healthcare, education and employment.
He said that India is also at the frontlines of facing the impacts of climate change. Shifting rainfall patterns, recurring floods, stronger cyclones and droughts or soil erosion are exacerbating the challenge of poverty eradication and necessitate the allocation of scarce national resources for preventing loss of human life. Citing Green revolution as a practical example of how India managed global collaboration by developing hybrids to increase food productivity and the collaborative research to find the God particle, he called on the world to foster a similar spirit of IPR less collaboration to address climate change and further asked “Why do we want to profit from disasters?”
He felt that there is a need to address the genuine requirements of the developing countries by providing them equitable carbon space to achieve sustainable development and eradicate poverty. Developing countries could do more if finance, technology support and capacity building is ensured. He called this to be a key focus of the new agreement.
The minister called upon the developed countries to urgently fulfill their legal obligations in the pre-2020 period. They must scale up their mitigation ambition now and urgently fulfill their promises for providing financial and technological support to developing countries. He said "an army marches on its stomach". Global climate action rests on the shoulders of the means of implementation, especially on finance and technology and he said that it has to be addressed on an urgent basis.
Acknowledging that some announcements have been made by some countries to contribute to the Green Climate Fund, Shri Javadekar termed the scale of these announcements remains inadequate and far from what has been pledged.
He also said that INDCs (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) should include all elements including mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology and capacity building and stated that India firmly believes that the INDCs are to be ‘nationally determined’ and there shouldn’t be any role for any ex-ante review in this process. Interestingly this view is similar to that of China which doesn’t want to be questioned by anyone about its actions.
