At the Leaders Summit on Climate, India and the United States announced a new high-level, “US-India Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 Partnership”, to create stronger bilateral cooperation on actions in the current decade to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. 

Highlights of the partnership:

• Led by PM Narendra Modi and US President Joseph Biden, the partnership will represent one of the core venues for India-US collaboration and focus on driving urgent progress in this critical decade for climate action. 

• Both India and the US have set ambitious 2030 targets for climate action and clean energy. 

• In its new nationally determined contribution, the US has set an economy-wide target of reducing its net greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52 percent below 2005 levels in 2030. 

• As part of its climate mitigation efforts, India has set a target of installing 450 GW of renewable energy by 2030. 

• Through the partnership, India and the US are firmly committed to working together in achieving their ambitious climate and clean energy targets and to strengthening bilateral collaboration across climate and clean energy.

The partnership will aim to:

• Mobilise finance and speed clean energy deployment.

• Demonstrate and scale innovative clean technologies needed to decarbonize sectors including industry, transportation, power, and buildings.

• Build capacity to measure, manage, and adapt to the risks of climate-related impacts. 

• The partnership will proceed along two main tracks: the Strategic Clean Energy Partnership and the Climate Action and Finance Mobilization Dialogue, which will build on and subsume a range of existing processes. 

• Through this collaboration, India and the US aim to demonstrate how the world can align swift climate action with inclusive and resilient economic development, taking into account national circumstances and sustainable development priorities.

The Paris Agreement and NDCs

2015 was a historic year in which 196 Parties came together under the Paris Agreement to transform their development trajectories so that they set the world on a course towards sustainable development, aiming at limiting warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. 

Through the Paris Agreement, Parties also agreed to a long-term goal for adaptation – to increase the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production. 

Additionally, they agreed to work towards making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.

Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) are at the heart of the Paris Agreement and the achievement of these long-term goals. NDCs embody efforts by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. 

The Paris Agreement requires each Party to prepare, communicate and maintain successive NDCs that it intends to achieve. Parties shall pursue domestic mitigation measures, with the aim of achieving the objectives of such contributions.

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