India needs better monitoring, higher climate targets to tackle rising temperatures: Experts

India must adopt better monitoring systems and set more ambitious climate targets to address global extreme temperatures, independent expert group Climate Crisis Advisory Group said on Monday.

In its report, “Solving the climate conundrum: Piecing together a global approach to keeping 1.5 alive”, the group noted that the global climate target to tackle warming by 2100 was to keep temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius, which was an “absolute planetary boundary, not an arbitrary limit”.

The Paris Climate Agreement, an international treaty on climate change, had set 1.5 degrees Celsius as the threshold to limit global average temperatures. Breaching this would unleash far more severe climate change effects on people, wildlife and ecosystems.

The report released on Monday dealt with the climate challenges faced by India, Ghana, the United States and Brazil.

India’s emissions per capita were significantly lower than those of other developed economies, it said, adding that the country faced a “complex balancing act” to transition away from fossil fuels without sacrificing energy security.

The researchers urged India to end fossil fuel subsidies and licences, accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources and ensure the protection of biodiversity and Indigenous communities to reverse its current climate trajectory.

Additionally, the report said that wealthy countries such as the United States should acknowledge...

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