Amid alarming reports by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that the year 2017 is one of the warmest on record, the United Nations climate change conference (COP23) began in Bonn on Monday with the aim to prepare a rulebook to implement the Paris Agreement.

Though the Paris Agreement is meant for post-2020 climate actions to keep the average global temperature rise within 2 degree Celsius by the end of this century, India has asked for inclusion of pre-2020 actions of developed countries in agenda for discussion.

India hopes that the demand to put pre-2020 actions on the agenda of the COP23 will be accepted. It is important as under pre-2020 actions, only developed countries - the historical polluters - are mandated to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases. The Paris Agreement, on the other hand, urges all nations to take voluntary climate actions (as they had promised) under this global deal in December 2015.

Speaking at the conference, India’s environment minister Harsh Vardhan said that India has always been ambitious in its climate change actions. He stated that India's per capita emission is only one-third of the global average and disclosed the country's efforts taken to fulfill its Paris Agreement commitment.

The US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement is a major setback as the US is the biggest historical polluter and the second largest current carbon emitter after China. The conference started with strong and unified calls to walk on the path of the Paris Agreement in order to achieve climate change goals.

India is conducting yoga sessions every evening in the country’s pavilion to showcase its age-old tradition of a sustainable lifestyle.