India, US on same page on bringing Paris climate agreement into force

NEW DELHI: Though the wording is just a little vague, India seems committed to ratify the Paris climate change agreement by the year-end, aligning Indian and US objectives in making the accord a binding one for achieving national carbon reduction goals.

The India-US joint statement indicates that the two countries will work towards ensuring that 55 nations, accounting for 55% of global emissions, ratify the Paris climate pact. This will bring the agreement into force and its terms cannot be altered for four years, with even a Trump presidency unable to undo the US decision to ratify the climate pact.

This will be a matter of relief to US President Barack Obama who has invested a lot of political capital in the Paris agreement and had urged India to support the initiative when he met Modi last year ahead of the COP-21 meet.

India submitted ambitious national goals that were appreciated by the US and the agreement seeks to commit signatories to nationally determined contributions that will be reported regularly and undergo an international review.

The statement said: “The United States reaffirms its commitment to join the (Paris) agreement as soon as possible this year. India similarly has begun its processes to work toward this shared objective”. The implications of the decision to work towards “shared objectives” are clear enough when seen in the light of the Paris accord’s ratification. Seeing nuclear energy as a path to clean energy, the statement said the two governments had addressed the nuclear liability issue through India’s ratification of the convention on supplementary compensation for nuclear damage.

This has laid a strong foundation for a long-term partnership between US and Indian companies for building nuclear power plants in India and the US export-import bank will work out a competitive financing package.