The climate ‘green’ boy

Even though India submitted its ‘voluntary greenhouse gas emission reduction’ to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change just minutes after the clock ticked into the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, it was still October 1 in Bonn, the headquarters of UNFCCC.

Hence, India managed to pay homage to the Father of the Nation while still meeting the deadline fixed for the 196 members of the Convention to give in their ‘intended nationally determined contribution’, or INDC, which would be the basis of the climate negotiations at Paris this December.

India’s INDC has three major elements – reduce its emission intensity (emission per unit of GDP) by 33-35 per cent over 2005 levels by 2030; achieve 40 per cent cumulative power installed capacity from non-fossil fuels by 2030, though with the help of international finance and technology; and plant more trees by 2030 to absorb 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.

India is one of the larger emitters of greenhouse gases, ranking behind China and the US, though in per capita terms India is way down in the ‘black’ list. Other major emitters – US, China, EU, Japan and Russia – had submitted their INDC much earlier, but everyone of them, without exception, had come in for strident criticism from green groups. In sharp contrast, India’s INDC has been welcomed. Even the hawkish Climate Action Network, a body of 950 green NGOs, said India had “through its INDC demonstrated its willingness to play an important role” in the climate talks.

And now, a report from Climate Action Tracker (CAT) says India will comfortably exceed its INDC targets. Climate Action Tracker is a body of four independent research organisations tracking climate change. India has been “unnecessarily cautious in setting its emission intensity targets,” says Prof Kornelis Blok of Ecofys, another member of CAT. “Given the supporting mechanisms and policies in place,” Blok says, it is feasible that India will meet its ambitious renewable energy targets.

CAT estimates that India will achieve 41.5 per cent reduction in emissions intensity of GDP by 2030, (against the target of 35 per cent) even without any new policies.

Experts note that India is “comfortable” with its targets because of the several initiatives launched as long back as in 2008, under one of the eight missions of the National Action Plan for Climate Change. The better known measure is the renewable energy target of 175 MW, but there are others too—for instance, 760 water supply projects worth Rs 35,650 crore are going on under the National Mission on Sustainable Habitat. The ‘good boy’ status of India should surprise nobody, as the country is one of the most vulnerable to climate change effects. In a 2011 study by Centre for Global Development, World Bank economist David Wheeler puts India the third-most vulnerable to weather changes by 2015, and the most vulnerable, in terms of population affected, to sea level rises by 2050.

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