India’s new climate change goals prompt discussion on whether it is doing enough
India has pledged higher targets on climate but the new goals, which omit a specific target for renewable energy, have prompted a debate on whether the world’s fourth biggest emitter of carbon dioxide is doing enough to fight global warming.
According to its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) announced last week, the country has committed to reducing its emissions intensity, the volume of emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP), by 45 percent by 2030 from its 2005 level.
It has also set a target of 50 percent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuels by 2030.
Installed capacity refers to the maximum output of electricity that a power generating system can produce under ideal conditions.
These are higher goals compared with the 2015 NDC ones that had pledged a 33-35 percent reduction in emissions intensity by 2030, and 40 percent electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel by the same year.
The new NDC targets will be submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ahead of the Conference of Parties (COP) climate summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, in November.
These new goals have been welcomed by experts, especially at a time when the Indian economy is recovering from losses inflicted by the pandemic and the world is seeing less action on climate change.
India is the fourth biggest emitter of carbon dioxide after China, the United States and the European Union.
However, the absence of a specific target for renewable energy has been seen as a climbdown from the five pledges made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at COP26 in Glasgow last year.
He had announced that 50 percent of India’s energy requirement would be met by renewable energy by 2030.
The International Energy Agency expects the share of coal in India’s power generation mix to be in the low 30 percent range by 2040.
The goal to cut emissions intensity by 45 percent would require a “substantial decoupling” of emissions from GDP, said Dr Navroz Dubash, a professor at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR).
According to a research publication by two of his colleagues, India’s emissions grew at an annualized rate of 5.1 percent between 2010 and 2016, while its GDP increased at an annualized 6.8 percent in the same period.
“If India continues to grow at a similar rate of 6.5 percent between 2020 and 2030, then in order to meet the intensity pledge, emissions will only be able to grow at a maximum of 3.1 percent annually between 2016 and 2030,” wrote CPR fellows Aman Srivastava and Ashwini Kumar Swain.