Therefore, the Paris conference must include a debate on lifestyles. The UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) slated for December will, presumably, be mankind’s last chance to “cut a deal to avoid 2 degrees Celsius of global warming,” and thus keep us away from its “truly very bad effects”.

At the weekend in Paris, the United States and Switzerland hosted senior officials from 18 developed countries to discuss their collaborative efforts to scale up climate finance for developing nations, and to provide increased transparency on their progress. Unfortunately, short of some “world government” approach, developing countries can not absorb the infrastructural costs required to segue into renewable energy. On the other hand, Indian lifestyle is sustainable where one earth is sufficient. We believe in need-based consumption and our lifestyle is against extravagant consumption. Javadekar quoted the latest “Earth Overshoot Report” to substantiate his points.

The following is the text of the intervention by Minister of State (Independent Charge) of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Shri Prakash Javadekar at the informal Conference of Parties (COP-21) meeting in Paris on September 06-07, 2015.?The world must debate seriously the sustainable lifestyle issue, as only sustainable lifestyle can mitigate the challenge of Climate Change.

Thanks to NASA’s ominous new warning on the perils of climate change, the world is gung-ho for “going green” again. Additionally, a combative climate change manifesto, sponsored by Noam Chomsky and Desmond Tutu among others, has surfaced, and demands a “radical change in the global economy” to save the human civilization. It is about climate justice.

“We have less than three months before the Paris meeting”, French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius, told everyone as he opened the meeting on Sunday.

Kerry warned that the threat posed by climate change is global, and added that without global cooperation, the impacts will be devastating – and they will extend to every country on Earth. “Every poor of the world has the right to emerge out of poverty, and poor and developing countries need sufficient carbon space to ensure sustainable development”, he said.

The representatives from China and India said that the developed countries should accept the responsibility for the global climate change as they were the ones who released the most amount of carbon from burning coal, gas and oil over the years.