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India says committed to Paris climate deal despite Trump’s move to withdraw US

India remains committed to the Paris agreement to tackle climate change regardless of what other countries do, the government said on Friday after from the landmark global pact.

“India under [Prime Minister Narendra] Shri Modi’s leadership has taken up renewable energy as an article of faith and is steadfast on its Paris commitments, irrespective of what others do,” power minister Piyush Goyal said in a statement.

Harsh Vardhan, the environment minister, said the world’s third largest greenhouse gas emitter was committed to ensure it did its best to address climate change and global warming.

Trump declared the US would withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate accord, saying the “draconian” deal unfairly punished America but benefited countries such as India and China.

The stand drew strong condemnation from leaders and environmentalists from across the world.

“India makes its participation contingent on receiving billions and billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid from developed countries. There are many other examples. But the bottom line is that the Paris accord is very unfair, at the highest level, to the United States,” Trump said.

The Paris agreement commits the US and other countries to keep rising global temperatures “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and “endeavour to limit” them to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Only Syria and Nicaragua did not sign the deal.

Source: HindustanTimes