IPCC climate report vindicates our 'Polluter Pays' stand, says govt

The latest report on climate change vindicates the stand that India has taken since 2015, namely, that the developed world should pay for the damage caused by its industrialisation and not commit poorer countries to similar targets on reducing carbon emissions.

Indian officials and ministers believe that the report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) supports the ‘Polluter Pays’ principle espoused by India.  

“Developed countries have usurped far more than their fair share of the global carbon budget,” said Bhupender Yadav, Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in a statement. “Reaching Net Zero alone is not enough, as it is the cumulative emissions up to Net Zero that determines the temperature that is reached. This has been amply borne out in the IPCC report.”

Released on Monday, the IPCC report blamed historical human behaviour for the current extreme climate - which has already caused some devastating flooding and fires - rather than natural causes.  Yadav said this supported India’s view that historical cumulative emissions are the source of the climate crisis that the world faces today. 


 

The report has estimated that under all growth scenarios, the planet’s warming level will touch 1.5 degree Celsius. Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are responsible for approximately 1.1 degree Celsius of warming since 1850-1900. Over the next 20 years, the global temperature is expected to reach or exceed 1.5 degree Celsius above the normal range, said the report authors.

In 2015 at the Paris COP21, India committed itself to sourcing 40 per cent of its energy demand from renewable sources as part of its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC). It also said it would reduce the emission intensity of its GDP by 33-35 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.

Government officials said India is well on its way to meet its INDC targets. “As  of 2016, India’s emission intensity to GDP is 24 per cent. We have 14 years to meet the 33-34 per cent intensity and we will meet that. Second, the INDC of our renewable energy capacity has touched 38 per cent (including hydro) and we will touch 40 per cent soon,” said a senior Environment Ministry official.

Another added “India need not do much more than what we have already committed”, explaining that India was close to its targets because of several initiatives.

“India will add 450 GW of renewable energy target by 2030. We are giving an aggressive push to green hydrogen as a fuel. India has already commenced one of the largest programmes for greening the agriculture power supply through the PM-KUSUM scheme,” said another official.

At various junctures, both the Power and Environment ministries have said that  India will not declare Net Zero target. Net Zero means that there is balance in the carbon emissions versus the emissions saved. Net negative emissions mean saving is more than emitting. China has announced it will achieve Net Zero before 2060 and the UK has kept 2050 as the target.

India’s stand is that it is the industrialised world, not developing countries, who should have Net Negative targets and moreover they should finance the green energy targets of India and other developing countries.  

“The developed world has occupied 80 per cent of the carbon space already. Now you have to give space to others to develop, for instance, 800 million people are still without electricity in Africa. You can’t say you come to net zero – no, sorry. These countries have to develop and that development will need steel, cement etc. You can’t stop them,” said R K Singh, who heads the Power Ministry and the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy in April at an event organised by the International Energy Agency.

Consequently, for the upcoming COP26 in Glasgow during November, India has no plan to announce any Net Zero target. Sunita Narain, director general, Centre for Science and Environment agreed that India will emit less than the US or China but urged the government to take active steps to avoid a climate crisis. 

“The government is sanguine about doing more than other countries in terms of comparable action to reduce CO2 emissions. We have no measurable targets to reduce emissions. Our NDC is to reduce not absolute emissions but the emission intensity of our economy,” said Narain.

The global crisis was an opportunity for India, she said, to change its development policies to limit climate change. 

“We need to reinvent the way we do things, from mobility to building houses, to access to affordable energy. For us, action on climate change comes out of self-interest and co-benefits,” she said.