MSSRF website to track climate action of developed countries launched

The Climate Change Group at the M.S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) Chennai, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Department at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) Bengaluru, have launched a website to track equity in climate action.

 The website called the Climate Equity Monitor ( https://climateequitymonitor.in ) is an online data tracker for assessing equity in climate action– in terms of inequalities in energy and resource consumption across the world and climate policies under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty to combat climate change to stabilize greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere.

The Hon’ble Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Shri Bhupender Yadav welcomed the going live of the website “Climate Equity Monitor” on global climate policy. On the occasion, the Minister said, “I welcome this scientific initiative, Climate Equity Monitor, that focuses on equity and climate action from a data and evidence-based perspective. I hope it will encourage a vigorous discussion on this crucial issue and engage experts from all countries. I congratulate the team that worked on this project and hope that they will continue to improve and enhance it”.

The Climate Equity Monitor will track the performance of developed countries on climate action based on the foundational principles of UNFCCC . The performance and policies of the developing countries will also be provided for comparison.

Experts have long been felt the need of such platform. Such trackers are either based in the Global North (developed economies) or funded by them, and they do not adequately address the crucial aspects of equity and differentiation.

The website has been conceptualized and developed by independent researchers from India -- the Climate Change Group at the M.S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), Chennai, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering department at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) Bengaluru, with other independent researchers. The MSSRF team was led by Prof. T. Jayaraman, Senior Fellow, Climate Change and the NIAS team by Dr. Tejal Kanitkar, Associate Professor.