be signed off by ambassadors for the EU, while it also needs final approval from New Delhi.
Apart from the 27-nation bloc, Rwanda and Peru have been among the countries calling for a legally binding global treaty in order to minimise plastic pollution in natural habitats, particularly in oceans and seas. These countries hope to win international support for such an initiative ahead of the UN Environment Assembly meeting, due to take place in February 2022. At this meeting, these countries hope to launch negotiations on an agreement akin to the 2015 Paris Accord, under which nearly 200 nations have pledged to slash their greenhouse gas emissions in order to minimise global warming.
With several large economies across the world, including the EU and the United States, having pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, as the world’s third-biggest emitter, India is now facing increased pressure to make similar commitments in order to bring down its greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades.
However, India is among the countries which will be most impacted by such a commitment. As the South Asian nation continues to push for higher economic growth in order to pull out hundreds of millions of citizens from poverty, the country is expected to grow at the fastest pace in the world over the next few decades. This means that no amount of reforestation could capture the increasing emissions, while most capturing and storage technologies are very expensive and sometimes unreliable.
Nevertheless, according to Reuters, the draft summit statement said the European Investment Bank, along with development banks of EU-member states, intend to increase their financial assistance to India for green transport, renewable energy and other climate-related initiatives.
