India will on October 2 ratify the climate change agreement arrived at by the global community at the Paris conference last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Sunday.
Modi, addressing the concluding session of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s national council meeting in Kozhikode, said he wanted to use the occasion to tell the whole world that India would ratify the climate change treaty on October 2, and that it was a deliberate effort to do it on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
“At the CoP 21 (21st meeting of the conference of parties on climate change), India had taken a decision to take on its responsibilities to control climate change. We will ratify it,” he said.
The prime minister said it would be done on Gandhi’s birth anniversary because his life involved minimum carbon foot print.
“On October 2, the Indian government and the 1.25 billion people of India will ratify the decision taken at CoP 21,” he said.
India had announced its 'climate action plan’ on October 2 last year. The government had submitted its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on October 1, and the announcement was made the next day, which was Gandhi’s birth anniversary.
Sixty countries, including the US and China, have ratified the treaty so far. At the CoP 21 meeting in Paris in last December, 195 countries had adopted the treaty.
For the treaty to come into effect, at least 55 countries need to ratify it and they should represent 55 per cent of the total global emissions. While more than 55 countries have ratified the treaty, they account for only 47.62 per cent of the total global emission.
India accounts for 4.1 per cent of the global emission, and a ratification of the treaty by the country will bring it closer to the 55 per cent requirement.
