Positive change

India is on track to meet its Paris climate targets

Barring the subpar performance in the forestry sector, India’s showing on other fronts of global warming mitigation action has been quite impressive. The country is on track to fulfil its commitments made under the Paris climate agreement to slash the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity of its economy by 33 to 35 per cent from the 2005 levels and also raise the share of clean energy in its power output to 40 per cent. The biennial update report, which New Delhi is going to present to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) next month, maintains that these targets are likely to be met ahead of the 2030 deadline. This feat appears all the more creditable considering that many developed countries, which are bigger polluters and should be doing more on these counts, are reneging on their pledges, fearing adverse fallout of such action on their economy. The US is mulling even to walk out of the Paris accord.

According to the biennial report, the emissions intensity of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) had dipped by as much as 21 per cent below the 2005 levels by 2014, reflecting a robust average annual improvement of over 2 per cent. Significantly, the emissions reduction is fairly broad-based with even the energy-intensive industries such as aluminium, iron and steel, cement, and fertilisers etc. contributing to it. In the case of clean energy, the share of non-fossil fuels-based power in total electricity production has already surged to 35 per cent. The 40 per cent target, therefore, seems well within reach. However, the point to note here is that India’s international commitment does not pertain strictly to the renewable energy capacity but to the power produced from non-fossil sources and, therefore, includes hydropower as well as nuclear power. Creation of 175 gigawatt (Gw) renewable power capacity through solar, wind and bio-energy units by 2022 is a domestic target.
 

The downside of India’s fight against climate change is that it has failed to do enough to boost its capacity to remove carbon dioxide from the environment by fixing it into the soil through trees and vegetation. Going by the data presented in the biennial report, carbon sequestration through forests has, in fact, dwindled between 2010 and 2014 though it has increased outside the forests due to the expansion of plantations and agro-forestry. Unfortunately, the Green India Mission, launched specifically to restore and enhance the country’s diminishing forest cover, has so far failed to show the desired results. No doubt, being a land-stressed country, India can ill-afford to bring substantial chunks of additional land under forest cover, but it surely can and, in fact, should improve the tree density and vegetative cover in the degraded forests and other wastelands to enhance their carbon absorption capability.

This apart, the solar energy sector, too, is losing its attraction among the prospective investors due to the steep decline in solar power tariff and higher duties on solar equipment imports from China. Land availability is another formidable constraint for the future growth of this sector. These issues would need to be addressed holistically and promptly to sustain the country’s battle against climate change and remain ahead of others in this field. Otherwise, India would lose the moral authority to play a significant role at the forthcoming United Nations summit on climate change (COP 24) at Katowice (Poland) next month.