Indian-origin UK minister behind bringing world to limit global warming – EQ Mag Pro
New Delhi : The man behind bringing nearly all 200 nations into a common cause — to adapt to the effects of climate change and limit the rise in average global temperature to 1.5 C as required by the 2015 Paris Agreement — is an Indian-origin UK minister.
Born to Hindu parents in Agra and moving to the UK in 1972, Alok Sharma was appointed President for COP26, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, on January 8. Since then Sharma has been on his toes, travelling across the globe to set the agenda for the summit.
This year COP is being held under the presidency of the UK and is being hosted in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12. This is the largest event of its type that the UK has ever hosted. The climate talks bring together heads of state, climate experts and campaigners to agree to coordinated action to tackle climate
Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global average temperature increases to 1.5 C within reach, Britain will be leading the formal negotiations and will have oversight of the overall COP package and vision, including political declarations.
Climate negotiators told IANS it would have been a big task for Sharma, who has been working closely with the backing of the Prime Minister to get countries to commit to new pledges to tackle the climate crisis, to enable the developing countries that require technological and financial support so they can leapfrog the dirty development path and increase their resilience to
climate impacts.
Prior to entering Parliament, Sharma qualified as a chartered accountant with Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte, and then worked for 16 years in banking. Sharma was in New Delhi in August for discussions with ministers and leaders from industry and civil society on collaboration on climate action.
At that time, Sharma, who holds the post of minister of state at the UK Cabinet Office, said India had a vital role to demonstrate renewed action under the Paris Agreement.
“India’s leadership, including through the International Solar Alliance (ISA) and Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), is hugely important as we look to build global resilience ahead of COP26 and beyond,” he had said.
In the last climate talks in Spain in 2019, India, China, Brazil and some developing countries had failed to convince the world to evolve rules for trading internationally carbon credits which help them decarbonize economies at lower cost.
The countries failed to agree unanimously on Article 6 of the crucial Paris Agreement rulebook concerning the carbon markets system as the two-week lengthy negotiations concluded two days past the official deadline.
Source : IANS
