Syllabus: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.
Context
- India, along with several developing nations, has called for establishing a Just Transition Mechanism at the ongoing COP negotiations.
- It emphasised that adaptation finance is not optional but an essential investment that remains critically underfunded.
Just Transition Work Programme
- Created at COP27 (2022) and made functional at COP28 (2023).
- Aimed at shifting workers dependent on fossil-fuel industries into renewable-energy and sustainable livelihoods.
- India stressed a broad interpretation, linking just transition to resilience, employment, poverty reduction, food security, and social protection.
India’s Key Positions
- Countries must design their own sustainable development pathways, aligned with national priorities and circumstances.
- Minister said progress on adaptation should be country-driven and nationally determined, using national systems, capacities, and data.
- India demanded that a Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) must allow flexible national metrics, not uniform global templates.
Negotiation Challenges
- COP Presidency (Brazil) is attempting to secure agreement on a cover text, but divisions remain.
- Developed nations resist language requiring low-cost climate finance for developing countries.
- Developing nations oppose prescriptive timelines for ending fossil-fuel use without ensuring financial support.
India’s Broader Argument
- Countries have different starting points, development stages, and vulnerabilities.
- A one-size-fits-all transition is unacceptable; nationally determined, demand-driven pathways must guide climate action.
- India highlighted global equity and the need for sufficient policy space to close development gaps and protect citizens’ welfare.