US pull-out will delay climate action: Indian Paris negotiator

The void on climate financing, in the wake of United States' pullout from the Paris climate accord, could potentially slow down acceleration of India's efforts to meet its climate goals, said Ajay Mathur, Director-General, The Energy and Research Institute (TERI), one of India's key negotiators and spokesperson at the 2015 Paris climate summit.

"There are a lot of Indian initiatives that have been undertaken to meet climate goals and none of these are based on climate financing. They are helping us to manage a balance between development and environmental concerns. This could have been accelerated with the help of climate finance," said Mathur speaking to DNA.

The climate finance Mathur was referring to is the financial assistance developed economies are to provide developing countries under the Paris accord. Apart from finance, developed countries are to also provide support on capacity building and technology transfers. As part of its commitments, US had pledged $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund, an entity under the United Nations Framework on Climate Change that sanctions projects to mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

During former President Barack Obama's term, the US had released $1 billion to the GCF.

Dubbing the US decision as unfortunate, Mathur said the absence of its leadership and financial support in implementing the agreement could delay actions to both reduce global emissions as well as adapt to the adverse impacts of the climate change that has already occurred. "The US is the largest emitter, historically and otherwise. If they do not reduce emissions, it doesn't matter what others do," Mathur said.

The TERI DG said that despite US pullout, action on climate change would continue, but would be delayed.