KOZHIKODE, Sept 25 - Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday announced that India will ratify the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) protocol on combating climate change on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi�s birth anniversary on October 2.
�Now the time has come to ratify the COP21 protocol. India will do it on Gandhi Jayanti on October 2,� Modi said while addressing the Bharatiya Janata Party�s (BJP) National Council meet here, noting that Gandhi had lived his life with a minimum �carbon footprint�.
It was also on October 2 last year that India had submitted its action plan, called the �Intended Nationally Determined Contribution�, to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which eventually led to a deal at COP21 in Paris in December 2015.
Modi also noted that Jan Sangh founder and ideologue Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya had said that �we should exploit natural resources only to the extent which does not cause imbalance in nature, else its cycle will be destroyed.�
Expressing concern over climate change, he said the whole world is trying to keep the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius as provided in the Paris agreement.
�Such was the perception of other nations that India is being a spoilsport ... but at COP21 the whole world praised India saying it played a forward and positive role (in allowing the negotiations at COP21 go smoothly),� he added. � IANS
