As United Nations climate talks in Lima, Peru, near an end, negotiators and observers are looking at India and Australia to see whether they will support a draft agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With China and the U.S. having agreed last month to reduce carbon emissions, India — the world’s third largest emitter of CO2 — has said its emissions will continue to rise as it pulls its people out of poverty. But India’s environment minister said in Lima yesterday that the country would spend $100 billion on clean energy and climate adaptation projects and would play its part in cutting CO2 emissions. Australia — whose Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, has weakened the country’s climate laws — is playing a constructive role at the talks and may support a draft emissions-reduction agreement that could be ratified next December in Paris, observers said. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Abbott said that any climate agreement “must [move] past the developed-developing country divide that puts a brake on real action.”
India and Australia Are Focus of Attention in Lima Climate Talks
More From E360
-
ANALYSIS
How China Became the World’s Leader on Renewable Energy
-
Biodiversity
As Flooding Increases on the Mississippi, Forests Are Drowning
-
Climate
In Mongolia, a Killer Winter Is Ravaging Herds and a Way of Life
-
Energy
In Rush for Lithium, Miners Turn to the Oil Fields of Arkansas
-
Food & Agriculture
How a Solar Revolution in Farming Is Depleting World’s Groundwater
-
INTERVIEW
What Will It Take to Save Our Cities from a Scorching Future?
-
Climate
Rain Comes to the Arctic, With a Cascade of Troubling Changes
-
Health
Plastics Reckoning: PVC Is Ubiquitous, But Maybe Not for Long
-
Energy
How a Legal Loophole Allows Gas Leaks to Keep on Flowing
-
Solutions
Flying Green: The Pursuit of Carbon-Neutral Aviation Revs Up
-
TECHNOLOGY
As Use of A.I. Soars, So Does the Energy and Water It Requires
-
Cities
How Parking Reform Is Helping Transform American Cities