India has once again demanded to not single out coal at the ongoing United Nations climate summit at Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh, while denying that it wants an expansion of the language in the final deal to include oil and gas.
A draft of the cover text for the final deal was under discussion on Saturday at the end of the first week of the 27th Conference Of Parties, or Cop27, with negotiators from 194 countries present. The draft would provide an indication of what the final deal would look like.
A text of the submissions made by India to be included in the draft, seen by The Independent, shows the coal-dependent South Asian nation has demanded that “all fossil fuels” that contribute to planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions should be taken into account instead of just “singling out coal.”
Earlier, Bloomberg reported that the country’s negotiators were demanding the text include a phase-down of oil and gas.
But a source told The Independent that India did not defend coal and its demands were in line with a “clean energy transition”, according to the findings of a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that “recognises the need for the phase down of all fossil fuels”.
Last year in Glasgow, an objection to the language of the final text from India and several other developing countries, including China, created an uproar with allegations of watering down of the language.
India is one of the biggest producers and consumers of coal, however it maintains that the clean energy transition should include the phasing down of all fossils including oil and gas that developed nations like the US, UK and EU are highly reliant on.
But the negotiations so far have only remained focused on coal, something developing countries have objected to repeatedly. The IPCC report released this year states that for the world to stay within the agreed target of 1.5C warming of the Paris agreement, all fossil fuel sources need to be phased out.
In its submission, the country has once again stressed there are “enormous disparities in energy use”. It also stressed on “equitable sharing” of the carbon budget, the space for remaining emissions to be utilised before the world can reach 1.5C warming.
This story was originally published by The Independent, with the support of Climate Tracker’s COP27 Climate Justice Journalism Fellowship.