Awareness on IPCC findings quite widespread, says Pachauri. While India and other countries have been opposing a review of their national contribution to tackle climate change, Chairperson of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) R.K. Pachauri firmly believes that unless there is a process of review in place, the direction the world is taking to tackle climate change will not be clear. A periodic review of targets and achievements is a must, he said in an interview to The Hindu on Tuesday. On the Lima climate talks, he was satisfied that all delegates were focussed on the findings of the IPCC. “We feel happy that at least the level of awareness of the findings has been quite widespread and, frankly, that is the only basis on which you can generate ambition to do something,” he said. It is important between now and the new treaty in Paris and beyond to focus on the need to keep reviewing what countries are doing in relation to what needs to be done and what is optimal from the scientific point of view, he said. The 15{+t}{+h}Delhi Sustainable Development Summit to be held in February will also provide a platform to discuss this review, he said. “Since, by then, a lot of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) will be in, we should be able to come up with a reliable picture of where we are going — all the big countries, the EU, the U.S. and China have already announced their targets. For the others, one could make assumptions and see where we are with the two-degree target,” he said. The IPCC has already said that the targets set at Cancun are not enough to limit the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Two-degree limit “One of the important findings of the fifth assessment report of the IPCC was the carbon budget and this concept is important for us to see whether we are going to remain within the two-degree limit — if not, we have to be prepared for a higher temperature increase,” Dr. Pachauri said. Once again, it reinforced the need for a regular review, he added. The IPCC will carry out a review of the INDCs but that will not be official since it is up to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). On India’s stand against ex-ante review of the INDCs, he said: “I don’t know why we should be so sensitive about this and what is the logic behind it. The common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) don’t get washed away because you have a review system and the review doesn’t necessarily go against maintaining that principle.” Dr. Pachauri said adaptation measures to deal with changing climate were neglected at not only the international but also the national level. The immediate priority was to make adaptation an important part of the development agenda; this would depend on the assessment of impacts of the future and it involved a significant amount of scientific work. “You have to pick up global climate models and downscale them to locations where you want to assess adaptation options and that’s a fairly extensive exercise,” he said. “I don’t think we have identified the need for it.” ‘Adaptation, an important part of development agenda’