Hon.
Chairman Sir, it is very encouraging to hear your words which give us a lot of credibility
because there are people who still do not accept that there is
climate change and it is / a crisis.
So, I start by thanking you for your words. Today, human beings have become
richer, more powerful, and more advanced. The literacy rate is much
higher than ever before. But today’s youth have // never ever been faced with this kind of climate anxiety.
Their minds are dominated by fear. When I was talking to a group of youngsters,
one of the boys told me that he is not /// sure whether he will reach the age of 50. It was very
disturbing to listen120 to a young person saying that he does
not know whether he will reach the age of 50. We cannot140 (1) wish climate change away. We cannot make fun of climate
activists or we cannot ignore this problem saying that there160
is a conspiracy behind it. Our oceans are heating up; rains are acidic;
forests are burning; coasts / are eroding;
sea levels are rising; and people are getting displaced. That is the truth. We
are fighting and playing politics over caste, religion, and racial differences.
While we are doing all these, we are losing the // only habitat known to human kind. This is an existential
crisis and nothing is more important than this.
The
COP26 meeting was held one month ago240 in Glasgow. This meeting is
considered as the most significant meeting of /// the century because of the crisis in front of us. There were
around six trillion trees on this earth before agriculture revolution which
started nearly 10,000 years ago.280 Today, it is less than half of what was
there (2) before the revolution
started. Losing our forests is not just losing places of calm and comfort. We
are losing the diversity of life, human health, the livelihood it provides, and
the climate resilience it gives to the earth. Global warming / is simply increasing carbon emissions
in the atmosphere, more than what can be absorbed by the trees, seas,
and natural environment. We should all join our hands together to combat it.360
The IPCC Report of 2018 also warned us that // global warming will increase during the 21st century unless there
is a massive reduction in greenhouse emissions in the coming decades.
The COP26 Agreement has set an ambitious goal of reducing it to a level which
is equal to the /// pre-industrial
revolution levels. Our hon. Prime Minister has made five420 important commitments
in the Climate Summit. All five commitments made by India are about mitigation
aspects of climate change. The final commitment of achieving net zero
emissions by 2070 has (3) received
the highest praise.
Sir,
I would like to ask what it means to achieve net zero emissions by 2070 for
India. How is the Government going to achieve this target?480
We have not even achieved two-thirds of what we / have to achieve. So, how are you
going to keep up the promise you have made to this world? To achieve its
new goals, India will need to do much more in a holistic way. For
instance, our country has // a
target of achieving 40 gigawatts of energy from solar power by 2022. But so
far, we have not been able to achieve even 20 per cent of that.560
In the transport sector, India
is expecting an increase of around ///
30 per cent in the share of the electric vehicles by 2030. Our target is 30
per cent but it has to be nearly 85 to 100 per cent. How are600
you going to bridge this gap?
The
next major (4) roadblock for India
achieving its net zero emissions is India’s increased reliance on coal for power
generation. More than 52 per cent of India’s energy needs are met by coal
alone and more than 60 per cent are from fossil fuels. / While in the past seven years, the
country has invested Rs. 5 trillion in renewable energy, the investment
in fossil fuel industry has come down only by four per cent which is around Rs.
245 trillion. So, how are you // going
to keep the promise you made to the world?700 The thermal power
plants are a major source of carbon emissions. How are we going to
reduce this? We did720 not do anything to cut the
emissions. It is because /// private
players do not want to spend money on methods to cut down the emissions
and even the Government did not want to do it. I would like to ask
whether it is human lives or the costs which (5) are more important. It is very clear that the reliance on coal
for energy in India will continue and it will peak by 2040. After that, demand
for energy will fall, and then only, you will be able to reach / your net zero target by 2070. You
have not started honouring your commitments. You are just pushing deadlines. How
will you achieve what you have promised to do?
Sir,
everybody blames840 the developed nations and it is true
that // all of us are
paying the price for what the developed nations did. Today, India wants to
position itself as the voice of the developing nations and the third world
countries. It is our duty to make sure that they /// have made a commitment of Rs. 100
billion dollars to combat climate change. What have we done to ensure that
this commitment made by these nations is fulfilled? Today, what we
eat, how we travel, and how we live, has an (6) impact on environment. Who is making profits out of it? It
is the big corporate companies. These corporate companies do not let
justice be done to people. Their lobbies will not960 allow the governments
to make policy changes and they / do not allow justice to be done to the
people.980
We have examples like the Union Carbide plant. After 35 years of that
incident, people are still seeking justice. They have not got what they
have to be given. The compensation // has not been given to them and there
is no clean-up either. Whatever was dumped there is still lying around.
Without getting justice for the common people, what are we going to do? How
are we going to keep /// the
promises made to the world?
Sir,
we talk about so many disasters. We talk about refugees around the world.
We talk about the people who are affected because of1080 political turmoil
and other reasons. But we forget to talk about (7) climate refugees. These people are going to constitute the
largest number of people in the future. According to statistics,
an average of 26 million people around the world / have been1120 forcibly displaced by floods,
wind storms, earthquakes and droughts. By 2050, this number will increase to 28
million. They will have to leave their places and move and run as refugees
because of climate change. Sadly, the Refugee // Convention in 1951 did
not talk about the climate refugees and we did not care about them at
that time. We did not even know much about them. But it is the
responsibility of countries like India to make sure that1200 /// these climate
refugees are included and there is a definition for climate refugees so that
their plight can be addressed and the world can be more sympathetic
towards them. In India itself, close to 1.5 million people are being displaced
every year because of climate change and because of extremities
which (8) we face every year. This displacement
of people does not1260 affect just the people of our country,
but even neighbouring countries are going to be affected because of the rising1280
water levels in the sea and if they are submerged, / then people will try to
take shelter in our country and we will be affected. What is the plan? What is
the policy? Has the Government thought how it is going to handle the people who
are going to be // internally displaced? Agriculture is
going to be affected. People living in the coastal areas are going to be
affected. The fishermen are going to be affected. Their livelihoods are
going to be affected. How are we going to handle that? /// How
are we going to handle people who would be coming from other
nations into our country?
Sir,
the hon. Members of this House must have seen as to what1400
(9) happened in many of the
States in India. Recently, in the State of Tamil Nadu there
has been 75 per cent rainfall. These extreme weather conditions are caused
by erratic rainfall pattern. The impact of climate change / cannot
be ignored1440
because they are overlapping. Cities and agricultural lands are being affected.
Cities are being flooded. Does the Government have any plan about how we
are going to deal with this problem in future? //
In
our State Tamil Nadu, we have the problem of excessive rainfall. The
capital city Chennai was flooded because of heavy rainfall. My parliamentary
constituency was flooded. We are struggling to drain the water out.
Sadly, Chennai is /// struggling with floods.
Water has stagnated and does not have a way out into the sea. In
spite of all that, the Government intends to expand the port. What
happens to the city and the people there? Should we (10) all get drowned? I think, the Union Government has to have a
clear plan on how we are going to deal with it. We have to think about
what is good in the long run, what is good for the people, and not what
is good for the corporates.1600
