The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has constituted a high-level inter-ministerial Apex Committee for the Implementation of the Paris Agreement (AIPA). The Secretary of MoEFCC will lead the AIPA.

The objective is to generate a coordinated response on climate change issues while ensuring that India is on track to meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement, including its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC).

India has already submitted its NDC in 2015 to implement the Paris Agreement in the post-2020 period. The NDC has eight goals, including three quantitative goals –

• Reduction in the 2005 emissions intensity of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 33-35% by 2030.
• Achieve around 40% cumulative electric power capacity installed from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030.
• Create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.

The constitution of the committee is central to strengthening the national systems and institutional arrangements for the implementation and monitoring of climate actions, as 2021 marks the beginning of the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

Senior officials from 14 ministries will serve as members of the committee to oversee the progress of NDC implementation. The AIPA will receive periodic updates to monitor, review, and revisit climate goals to fulfill the Paris Agreement’s requirements.

The AIPA would operate as a national authority to regulate India’s carbon markets under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, issue guidelines on carbon pricing and the market mechanism.

The AIPA would also formulate guidelines for project consideration, activities that fall under the ambit of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, and other similar instruments that have a bearing on climate change and NDCs.

The AIPA would consider the contributions made by the private sector and multilateral/bilateral agencies working in the field of climate change and guide them to align their climate actions with the nation’s priorities.

AIPA’s most important objective is to maintain India’s climate leadership as one of the few countries in the world whose climate actions are consistent with the Paris Agreement’s goals.

In 2016, India became the 62^nd country to ratify the Paris Agreement. The agreement requires every ratifying member country to come up with a national plan to curb carbon emissions and rising temperatures.

Meanwhile, last year, the United States government had submitted its formal notification of withdrawal from the Paris Climate Change Agreement to the United Nations, starting the one-year-long process. Former President Donald Trump had cited the unfair economic burden on American workers, businesses, and taxpayers by the country’s pledge to the agreement as a reason for withdrawing from the agreement.