India’s Climate Commitments: No Room For Cop Out In The Post COP26 World

Dec 8

By Ridhi Purohit

The word on the street is COP26, and the entire world has its eyes on Glasgow. Meanwhile, the average Indian is scratching their head wondering why is our Prime Minister declaring net-zero targets and what does it all mean for India?

Recently, the United Kingdom hosted the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties COP 26 in Glasgow (31st October - 12th November 2021). The various parties geared up to combat the climate crisis and meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCC). At COP26, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced India’s new climate action plan expressed as a five-fold “Panchamrit” strategy. Given India’s previous evasive stance, the declaration of a net-zero emissions target by 2070 took the world by surprise. A net-zero target aims to attain carbon neutrality, meaning that an economy must maintain balance by removing or absorbing the amount of carbon it produces from the atmosphere. Being the world’s fourth-highest carbon dioxide emitter, India’s commitment to achieving a net-zero carbon emissions target by 2070 is a step in the direction, but a robust strategy is the need of the hour.

India’s Five Key Commitments

India has centered the five key goals on two pillars: enhancing the usage of renewable energy and cutting down dependence on carbon to achieve net-zero. The first two goals emphasize India’s plans for renewable energy. India has committed to raising its non-fossil energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030 and further declared that by 2030, renewable energy sources will meet 50% of India’s energy requirements. The next two goals call for reducing total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes and lowering the economy’s carbon intensity by 45%, both targets to be achieved by the year 2030. The last commitment is attaining carbon neutrality and net-zero emissions by 2070. Though the parties have applauded India’s climate commitments, there has been criticism that India has set the net-zero target decades after the ideal global target of mid-century which the developed nations are adopting. The 2070 target serves as India’s balancing act against the developed countries responsible for contributing 79% of historical carbon emissions from 1850 to 2011. To support India’s demand for more time to cut back emissions as a developing nation, PM Modi emphasized during COP26, "India, which is 17% of the world population, is responsible for less than 5% of emissions". India’s COP26 commitments are ambitious, but if it does not overcome the current challenges faced by the renewable energy sector when pitted against reliance on coal within time, then the ambitions might be much more difficult to realize.

Challenges After COP26

India is in precarious waters battling an economy severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic while juggling a year full of extreme climate events like melting glaciers, soaring temperatures, and monsoon floods. It is no surprise that the Climate Action Tracker has branded India with a Highly Insufficient rating based on its present climate action strategy. Especially worrisome is that for paving the path for reducing carbon emissions, India is sailing in two boats. While on course to meet the targets set by the Paris Agreement, India has opened its coal mining market for private companies and foreign investments, simultaneously cooking up ambitious targets for renewable energy. A higher subsidy for coal compared to renewable energy creates an uneven field. As per Council on Energy, Environment and Water’s report, Mapping India’s Energy Subsidies 2020, “Since 2017, government support for fossil fuels increased by 65 percent while support for renewables declined by 35 percent.”. In a time when the Government of India(GOI) should focus on preserving the country’s already disturbed ecosystems, incentives like the enablement of FDI to promote coal mining are detrimental to the nation’s climate health. Further exacerbating the problem are privatization attempts in the coal mining industry. It sets up the exploitation of India’s indigenous lands, deforestation, and population displacement. India also has projected plans to increase its coal capacity from 202GW in 2021 to 266GW by 2029-30. India has cited its intentions to continue coal usage because of development growth and energy security reasons, as cited in the 2021 Third Biennial Report presented to the UNFCC. While this propensity towards coal is being counterbalanced by significant investments in renewable energy (as much as INR 5.2 Trillion), it is not a workable long-term strategy to support carbon neutrality.

The ambiguity in India’s existing approach to the nation’s future climate health is a malaise for the newly declared net-zero target. Opening up the economy for investment in renewables is not sufficient. Phasing out the usage of coal with a well-defined decarbonization strategy will stimulate the renewable energy market. India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) have worked for the adoption of solar and wind energy as the lowest-cost electricity sources. Similar NDCs to execute a decarbonization strategy could generate more FDI in the desired territory to avoid looming climate catastrophe. To offset the need for coal consumption, the National Solar Mission in tandem with AtmaNirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, should be further strengthened and expanded. If India can stimulate the market for renewables, it has the potential to emerge as a dominant player in the race for transition to renewable energy.

Climate Change Adaptation Should Be Front And Center

GOI in 2004 in its Initial National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) reported several expected impacts of climate change to the Indian subcontinent. These included concerns surrounding decreased snow cover, erratic monsoons, increased frequency and intensity of floods, etc. In the past two years, India witnessed the reality of these climate-change concerns first expressed in 2004, notably the havoc wreaked by the extreme weather event cyclones, Tauktae, Yaas, and Amphan. India also has climate-sensitive livelihood sectors like agriculture, forests, and fisheries, with about 58 percent of the population relying on agriculture for livelihood. Keeping these considerations in mind, climate change adaptation is a crucial element of climate change mitigation for India.

At COP26, India has demanded that developed nations make funds of $1Trillion available to developing nations for climate adaptation, or else a lack of funding will hamper the efforts. It is a fair ask that developed nations should provide financial support for climate change adaptation and mitigation because their historical emissions have significantly contributed to climate change, disproportionately impacting the developing world. But solely relying on developed nations for climate finance is naïve. They have failed to even deliver on the 2009 agreement of making USD 100 Billion available every year by 2020 to help the developing nations adapt to climate change, as the Indian PM rightfully called out during COP26. India’s best bet to ward off severe climate change impact is to build environmental sustainability into its fabric. India should double down its efforts as per the National Action Climate Change Plan(NACCP). The “National Missions” under the NAACP needs revitalizing to keep pace with the newly declared COP26 targets. Further, India’s self-sufficiency programs, like AtmaNirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, need to incorporate elements of climate finance to help the nation adapt. Now is the time for India to re-engineer its economy and infrastructure to mitigate the effect of climate change for its citizens. Rather than choking on its carbon emissions, India has the moment to shift the focus towards climate change adaptation in the aftermath of the COVID-19 economic downturn. Doing so will establish India as a developing world leader in the long battle against climate change.

References:

1. COP26: How the world is reacting to the climate summit

2. What India's new climate goals mean, and why they are seen as 'ambitious'

3. COP26: India PM Narendra Modi pledges net zero by 2070

4. Climate change: The IPCC environmental warning India cannot ignore

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6. India's Climate Change Policy: Towards a Better Future

7. The Indian Mining Sector: Effects on the Environment & FDI Inflows

8. Current Status | Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India

9. COP26: Time to sober up

10. Developed Countries Are Responsible for 79 Percent of Historical Carbon Emissions

11. A round-up of India's worst climate change events in 2021-India News