Modi: We protect climate; Trump: India gets billions

Acting on his key campaign promise, US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that Washington will exit the historic Paris Climate Accord, which, he claimed, was skewed towards the interests of India and China, while being "unfair" to his country. The decision comes days after he indicated to world leaders at the G-7 meeting in Italy recently that the US would not implement its commitments made under the Paris Accord.

Announcing his decision, Trump said, "India makes its participation contingent on receiving billions and billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid from developed countries...the bottomline is that the Paris Accord is very unfair, at the highest level, to the United States."

While Trump had made it clear during the run-up to elections that he is a climate change sceptic, his criticism of India and China during his announcement has taken many by surprise, especially ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US later this month.

Reacting to US decision, PM Modi, who is in Russia for the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, said, "Paris or no Paris, our commitment to preserving the climate is for the sake of future generations."

Earlier, Trump added that the US would try to renegotiate terms of the agreement that "protects our country and its taxpayers".

Though Trump announced US exit from the deal, it will officially leave four years later as per its rules. But a decision to walk out means that it will not fulfil any of its remaining commitments.

Reacting to Trump's announcement, officials in the Environment Ministry, too, maintained that India would not waiver from commitments made under the Paris accord, but added that the US decision would certainly have a bearing on the financing of projects to tackle climate change, which was an obligation for the developed countries under the accord. "Since our commitments are voluntary, US decision would not affect them," said a senior ministry official on the condition of anonymity.

Trump's decision to walk out of Paris accord is a case of history repeating itself. Former US President George W Bush had similarly decided to not implement the Kyoto climate protocol, that mandated developed countries to cut their carbon emissions for keeping global temperatures from spiralling. As a result, the Kyoto Treaty, that would be in effect till 2020, fell through and did not achieve what it set out to do.

During his announcement, President Trump also stressed that the Paris accord was not only unfair, but also draconian. "The United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris Accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country...this includes ending the implementation of the nationally determined contribution and, very importantly, the Green Climate Fund which is costing the United states a vast fortune," President Trump said while announcing the decision at the White House.

Even as Trump talked about renegotiating the deal, the United Nations Framework on Convention on Climate Change said that the Paris agreement remains a historic treaty, signed by 194 and ratified by 147 countries.

Therefore, it cannot be renegotiated based on the request of a single party.

The historic accord was adopted in 2015 and it entered into force on November 4, 2016. Under the landmark treaty, countries have committed to cap the rise of temperatures below 2 degree Celsius compared to pre-industrial times and push for action to keep the temperatures within 1.5 degrees.

The treaty would come into effect from 2020. For the first time, both, developed and developing nations, have submitted Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC), a set of detailed actions they would take to tackle climate change voluntarily.

As part of India's INDC's, it has committed to reduce emissions intensity of its GDP by 33 per cent to 35 per cent by 2030 from 2005 levels. It has also resolved to scale up the share of non-fossil fuel energy production to 40 per cent.