10-Point Guide To PM Modi's Surprise Pledge At Climate Summit

"By 2070, India will achieve the target of net-zero emissions," Narendra Modi told more than 120 leaders at the critical talks. Though India's goal is two decades behind developed countries such as the US and UK, it's compatible with what scientists say is needed to avoid catastrophic global warming.

PM Modi also said India would increase its 2030 target for installed capacity of "non-fossil energy" - mostly solar - from 450 to 500 gigawatts. In addition, 50 per cent of the country's energy requirements will be met by renewable sources by the same date, he said.

PM Modi, however, reiterated his stance that emissions-cutting pledges from India and other developing nations would require finance from rich, historic emitters.

"It is India's expectation that the world's developed nations make $1 trillion available as climate finance as soon as possible," PM Modi said, without specifying how such funds should be distributed. The $1 trillion figure is 10 times more than the annual climate finance target set by rich countries. "Justice would demand that those nations that have not kept their climate commitments should be pressured," he said.

He also called for climate finance flows to be tracked in the same way as progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which is subject to strict monitoring.

PM Modi's announcement is consistent with what research shows is needed to meet that target. To keep temperatures from rising more than 1.5°C, the UN's panel on Climate Change projects that the world has to reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by about mid-century and then hit net zero across all greenhouse gases by 2070, according to Bloomberg.

India is the last of the world's major carbon polluters to announce a net-zero target, with China saying it would reach that goal in 2060, and the US and the EU aiming for 2050.

Under the Paris Agreement, countries that submitted carbon-cutting plans under the 2015 treaty were to provide updates five years later, by the end of 2020. 

At the COP26 opening, developing nation leaders expressed frustration that rich countries have failed repeatedly to deliver on a promise to mobilize more funds to help them decarbonize and adapt to a warming planet. Still, in their speeches on Monday, it was smaller and poorer countries that stepped up.

India has the lowest per capita emissions of the world's major economies -- emitting five percent of the total, despite accounting for 17 percent of the world's population.