Will India Achieve Its Target Of Net Zero Emissions By 2070?

The 26^th United Nations Climate Change Conference, referred as Conference of Parties or COP26, held at the SEC Centre in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom from 31^st October to 13^th November. On 13^th November 2021, the participating 197 countries agreed a new deal, known as the Glasgow Climate Pact.

What was special in this COP26?

• Governments of 24 developed countries and a group of major car manufacturers such as GM, Ford, Volvo, Jaguar Land Rover, and Mercedes-Benz have committed to "work towards all sales of new cars and vans being zero emission globally by 2040, and by no later than 2035 in leading markets". But also some famous car manufacturing nations like the US, Germany, China, Japan and South Korea, as well as Volkswagen, Toyota, Peugeot, Honda, Nissan and Hyundai had not signed up to the pledge.
• Declaration on forests and land use- Halting and reversing deforestation and land degradation by 2030. $19 billion of fund will be collected through public and private players. 12 countries will contribute $12 billion to developing countries by 2021-25. It is an expansion of 2014 New York declaration on forests which has targeted to bring down deforestation 50% by 2020 and 100% by 2030.
• Also global leaders have committed a ‘Global Methane Pledge’ to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels. It was proposed by US-EU in September and when they proposed it in COP26, 90 countries signed it including Brazil which is the largest methane emitter. Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after CO_2. Its global warming potential is 80 times higher than CO_2. But its atmospheric shelf life is just 12 years which is much lower compared to 100 years of CO_{2 .}
• Scientists have cautioned the world that in order to avoid the worst effect of climate change, the world needs to decrease the carbon emission by 50% by 2030 and achieve the net zero emissions by 2050. As per the goal targeted in Paris Agreement, we have to stop the global temperature rise at 1.5?C. As per the latest findings of Climate Action Tracker, if we go as per the pledge and targets, there will be a 2.4?C global temperature rise by the end of the century, and if we go as per current policies, there will be a 2.9?C hike in global temperature and as per scientists, required target are the 2?C rise in global temperature.

What has India pledged in Glasgow?

On 1^st November, PM Modi has announced the target of net zero emissions by 2070 for India at the Glasgow summit. Also PM has announced the five-point climate pledge or ‘Panchamrit’.

Net zero emissions actually mean that the amount of carbon being emitted by all sources should be equal to the amount of carbon being sequestered through forests and oceans etc. Bhutan and Surinam have already achieved the net zero emissions target.

Why India had not announced its target yet?

US, UK, EU have pledged to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 but by then, US will release 92 Giga Tonnes and EU 62 GT of carbon into the atmosphere. China and Saudi Arabia have set targets of 2060, but by then, China will be emitting 450 Giga Tonnes carbon by then.

All the carbon that is already circulating in the atmosphere and all that which will be emitted by fossil fuels by then cannot be sequestered because there are not enough jungles or lands to absorb so much carbon emissions.

Hence, India held that the current pathway to reducing emissions and access to climate finance was more important. This is the reason why India never announced net zero targets.

Under the Paris agreement, countries that submitted carbon cutting plans under the 2015 treaty were to provide updates five years later, by the end of 2020. India is the only major economy to not announce any target. Although, India had committed to cut the intensity of emissions of its GDP by 33% to 35% by 2030 from 2005 levels, it had not announced net zero target.

As per the data of 2018, the CO₂  emissions of China, USA and India are 10 billion tones, 5.41 billion and 2.65 billion tones respectively. Also per capita emission in India is 1.7 metric ton and on the other hand, USA has 16.5 metric tonnes. So India has very small per capita emission as compared to other developed nations. Our population is 17% of the world but our emissions are only 5% of the world. We are still developing and we need to emit carbon to develop ourselves.

What is India’s ‘Panchamitra’?

The net-zero commitment by 2070 commitment was supported with four near term targets (to be achieved by 2030)-

• India would increase its renewable energy capacity to 500 GW from 450 GW announced before.
• India would increase the share of renewable in the energy mix to 50% by 2030.
• India would reduce the emissions intensity of carbon in its economy by 45%.
• India would reduce emissions by one billion tones of CO₂ by 2030.

Also PM Modi supported the demand of Africa Group for a new financial target of $1 trillion for developed nations for climate finance. Developed nations had previously announced to fund the climate finance of 100 billion USD in 2009.

Can India achieve this target?

India’s renewable energy capacity is fourth in the world with 25% increase in the renewable energy capacity in the last four years. India’s railway system has promised to reach net zero by 2030. This alone will reduce 60 million tones of emissions.

India has also launched institutional solutions at the global level like ISA and CDRI. India, Australia and UK altogether will launch the IRIS initiative (Infrastructure for Resilient Island States) to help small island countries. India’s ISRO will give them an early warning weather monitoring system to prepare themselves from upcoming disasters. India will also launch the Global Grids initiative. So, India can achieve its target easily.