JOIN USA pledge that India didn’t see coming
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s five-point climate action plan, announced at the 26th edition of the Conference of Parties (CoP26) in Glasgow, is challenging and ambitious, and scales up India’s commitments made at Paris in 2015. The five national pledges are to increase non-fossil energy capacity to 500 GW, meet 50% of energy requirements from renewable energy (RE), reduce the total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes, cut the carbon intensity of the economy by 45% (from the previous target of 35%), all by 2030, and to achieve the net-zero target by 2070. The announcement came as a surprise because till last week, there was no sign the government was going to make a new offer on its climate change plan. It was also remarkable because no other country has till now improved on its Paris pledge.
Achievement of these targets will be a tough task for a country like India at its present stage of development. At present, renewable energy has a share of just over 10% in the country’s power mix. Raising it to 50% in nine years will not be easy, though there has been good progress in building renewable capacity in recent years. RE technologies have to develop further, and there are serious production, storage and distribution problems. Reduction of emissions by one billion tonnes by 2030 demands a cut in carbon output by a massive 22% by 2030. Achieving net-zero emission by 2070, though far out in the future, would depend on a number of factors. But India has done well to make the pledge after the US and the EU announced a 2050 target and China has set a 2060 target.
Efforts to meet these targets will involve massive changes in development plans and policies, and as the Prime Minister mentioned, in lifestyles also. Present policies and practices in many areas like forests, agriculture, industry, environment and others will need to be changed and many laws in these sectors will have to be rewritten. There will also be economic, social and even political consequences for the changes. A delicate balance between the needs of a fast-developing economy and the demands of environment as defined by climate imperatives will have to be found and maintained. The success of strategies to fight global warming will depend on the policies and actions of developed countries which should support the plans of developing countries and discharge their individual and global responsibilities. Modi underlined this when he said that global investments and technologies will have a major role in India’s green transition. But it is also important for the country to promote R&D that will lead to creation of technologies that we need.