Addressing the special United Nations Country Team (UNCT) at the UN House in New Delhi, Yadav said UN India was working with the Niti Aayog and the ministry to create a ”LiFE compendium of global best practices on sustainable lifestyles”.
New Delhi:
Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said on Thursday that his ministry would launch a countrywide campaign to popularise Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mission LiFE and encourage people to adopt an environment-friendly lifestyle.
Mission Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) is a pro-people and pro-planet effort that seeks to shift the world from mindless consumption to mindful utilisation of natural resources.
It was launched by Modi on October 20 in the presence of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
The agreement of the UN climate summit COP27 in Egypt included ”sustainable lifestyle” at India’s behest, Yadav said at Times Now Summit.
He said the Niti Aayog has developed an action programme to bring behavioral change in people, starting from reducing wasteful consumption of water and electricity.
”The ministry will launch a campaign to take it forward next year,” he said.
Addressing the special United Nations Country Team (UNCT) at the UN House in New Delhi, Yadav said UN India was working with the Niti Aayog and the ministry to create a ”LiFE compendium of global best practices on sustainable lifestyles”.
This will be a comprehensive repository of the best practices from around the world, according to the minister.
There could be many other ways to roll out the COP27 decision on transition to sustainable lifestyles. For example, UN India could consider organising a global conference on Mission LiFE during India’s G20 presidency, he said. At the Times Now summit, he said COP27 reached a consensus on a loss and damage fund due to the efforts of India and Modi.
A fund to address loss and damage due to climate change-induced disasters was the key demand of poor and vulnerable countries at the climate summit this year and the success of the talks hinged on progress on this track.
Yadav said early warning for disaster risk reduction should be a fundamental right.
The minister said developed countries, which account for the largest part of historical emissions, are responsible for the warming the world is experiencing today and they should compensate developing countries for this.
A shift to renewable energy is needed to prevent an increase in global temperature and rich nations are required to transfer technology and provide finance for this purpose, Yadav said.
Addressing the UNCT, he said many UN agencies are the implementing agencies under the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and some are also accredited entities under Green Climate Fund (GCF).
The GEF is a partnership of 18 agencies — including UN agencies, multilateral development banks, national entities and international NGOs — and they were working with 183 countries to address the world’s most challenging environmental issues.
The GCF — a critical element of the Paris Agreement — is the world’s largest climate fund, mandated to support developing countries raise and realise their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) ambitions towards low-emissions, climate-resilient pathways.
Yadav said he expects that the outcomes of COP27 on sustainable lifestyles, climate action in agriculture, mitigation work programme and just transition are factored in appropriately in the upcoming projects under the GEF 8 cycle.
He insisted that the UN system remains steadfast in the protection of foundational principles of environment conventions and treaties in its work in different countries.
”For India, the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC) in the light of national circumstances remains, paramount.
”I urge you to ensure that these foundational principles are respected when you prepare projects for implementation in India,” he said.
In climate parlance, equity means that each country’s share of carbon dioxide emissions is equal to its share of the global population.
The CBDR-RC principle recognises that each country is responsible for addressing climate change, but developed countries should bear primary responsibilities as they account for most of the historical and current greenhouse gas emissions.