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India Unveils Green Energy Targets to Meet U.N. Goals

India on Friday unveiled new renewable energy targets to help slash its high level of greenhouse gas emissions, in a plan submitted to the U.N. in the run-up to a conference in Paris later this year.

India, the world's third largest emitter, formally submitted its climate plans ahead of the COP21 conference that opens on November 30 in Paris with the aim of sealing a far-reaching global agreement on cutting Earth-warming emissions.

In its pledges, known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions or INDCs, India committed to cut its "carbon intensity" by up to 35 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, the document published on the U.N.'s website early Friday said.

Carbon intensity refers to the ratio of a country's emissions to its economic output.

India also committed to generating 40 percent of its electricity from green sources by the end of 2030 "with the help of transfer of technology and low cost international finance".

However, it resisted pledging major emissions cuts like rival China, which vowed in June to reduce its carbon intensity by 60 to 65 percent over 15 years.

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar is scheduled to make a formal announcement on the climate pledges later in the day.

The new goals would take India's capacity for renewable energy by 2030 to more than double the 175,000 megawatts currently targeted, to reduce crippling blackouts and bring power to the more than 300 million Indians currently living without electricity.

Greenpeace India lauded New Delhi's commitments, saying its renewables target "will change the energy matrix in India", stating that renewables currently make up less than 12 percent of its energy supply.

But the campaign group also expressed concern over the emphasis on coal in the Indian INDCs.

"India's continued commitment to expand coal power capacity is baffling. Further expansion of coal power will hamper India's development prospects," Pujarini Sen, a senior Greenpeace India campaigner, said in a statement Friday.

Mitigating and adapting the country for climate change will cost more than $1 trillion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government said in the paper.

Source: Agence France Presse


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