India's collaboration important for climate action: UN

The collaboration with India on climate action is quite important and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recommitted to continue leading on climate issues, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ Special Envoy for the 2019 Climate Summit said.

"The contribution, collaboration with India is also quite important, being one of the major emitters. Prime Minister Modi met only a few days ago with the Secretary-General in Biarritz and recommitted to continue to lead on climate and particularly dealing with solar energy which they have a huge and very important initiative," UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the 2019 Climate Summit Luis Alfonso de Alba said here Tuesday.

De Alba cited the example of India’s leadership on climate action while responding to a question on the response from Asian countries on combating climate change.

He referred to the recent meeting between Modi and Guterres on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in France, where the two leaders had fruitful discussions on climate issues.

"We had extensive deliberations on key issues, most notably ways to strengthen the efforts to mitigate climate change," Modi had said on Twitter following his meeting with Guterres.

The UN official also lauded efforts by Indian companies and said he has been very encouraged by the response of companies globally in tackling climate change.

"In my own experience, visits that I have had, the latest one was to India. There was a meeting with a huge number of the (biggest) companies - Tata, Mahindra and others, the cement industry etc,” he said adding that the industry is getting very much involved in climate action and climate response.

On China, he said the message has been given to Beijing that it must pay attention to greening its Belt and Road Initiative.

“We would like the Chinese initiative to not finance the coal plants but offer other possibilities. We have engaged quite closely with them and I could say that we are quite positively encouraged."

With a view to boost ambition and accelerate actions to implement the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, Guterres will host the 2019 Climate Action Summit on September 23 to meet the climate challenge.

The Summit will showcase a leap in collective national political ambition and it will demonstrate massive movements in the real economy in support of the agenda.

De Alba said the Summit is expected to be attended by over 100 world leaders.

Modi is expected to address the climate summit, along with other world leaders.

As part of a weekend of events leading up to the Climate Action Summit, the UN Youth Climate Summit will be held at the world body’s headquarters and is expected to be attended by about 600 youth leaders and activists.

The Youth Climate Summit will feature a full-day of programming that brings together young activists, innovators, entrepreneurs, and change-makers who are committed to combating climate change at the pace and scale needed to meet the challenge.

Young climate activist Vishnu P R, from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala is among 100 outstanding climate champions selected from around the world for a special 'Green Ticket' that will help them travel to the UN headquarters to participate in the first-ever Youth Climate Summit.

Vishnu is the CEO of 'Change Can Change Climate Change (C5) Foundation', an organisation focused on climate change mitigation and adaptation projects.

C5 is a youth-led initiative that was originally designed as a sustainable volunteer development platform which will be a model for the whole nation starting from Thiruvananthapuram, which has now become a platform with more than 10,000 registered youngsters in the district, the UN said.

In order to ensure that the transformative actions in the real economy are as impactful as possible, the Secretary-General has prioritised several action portfolios, which are recognised as having high potential to curb greenhouse gas emissions and increased global action on adaptation and resilience.

These action portfolios include finance, energy transition, industry transition, nature-based solutions, mitigation strategy.

De Alba said the coalitions will be led by one or two countries.

The coalition on transforming the industry is led by India and Sweden, while coalition on mitigation is led by Chile, that on energy transition by Ethiopia and Denmark and public finance by France, Qatar and Jamaica.