By IANS,
New Delhi : India Saturday informed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of its efforts to address global warming by trying to reduce its emissions intensity by 20-25 percent by 2020 but stressed that the agriculture sector would be kept out of this.
In a message sent to the UNFCCC secretariat, the government formally conveyed that India will endeavour to reduce its emissions intensity by 20-25 percent by 2020 in comparison to the 2005 level through domestic mitigation actions, an official release said.
Terming this as India’s contribution to the global efforts to address climate change, the government, however, has clarified that its domestic mitigation actions will be entirely voluntary and will not have a legally binding character.
It also said the mitigation actions will not apply to agriculture sector and the emissions from agriculture sector will be excluded from the assessment of emission intensity.
“The mitigation actions will be taken in accordance with the principles and provisions of the United Nations Framework Convention, which require developing countries like India take these actions in accordance with the principle of common but differentiated responsibility and respective capability. Developed countries, known as Annex I Parties, meanwhile, undertake mitigation commitments with specific quantified targets to reduce their emissions,” the release said.
India “intends to implement its mitigation actions in accordance with the provisions of the relevant national legislation and policies and will elaborate in due course the actions required in various sectors to achieve the overall objective of the emissions intensity reduction,” the release added.