INDIA SAYS ITS WORK TO REDUCE CARBON EMISSIONS IS PAYING OFF
▶ Environment minister says the country expects to meet its UN Paris Agreement targets
India’s efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions under the Paris Agreement are already showing results, a government minister said as climate change threatens the future of tens of millions of citizens.
India is the planet’s fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China, the US and the EU. Together they produced 55 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions in the past decade, according to the UN Environment Programme’s 2020 Emissions Gap Report.
But India’s environment minister said the country could not be held accountable for “historical” damage to the climate that he blamed on western countries.
“Climate change is not the result of one day, but is the result of historical actions,” Prakash Javadekar said earlier this month.
Mr Javadekar said India was the only G20 country to meet its commitments and that its emissions grew by 1.4 per cent in 2019, far less than the average of 3.3 per cent per year over the past decade.
It is one of 194 nations that signed the UN-sponsored Paris Agreement in 2015, which requires all parties to make legally binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases with effect from January 2021, in a bid to limit global warming to below 2°C above a benchmark set before the Industrial Revolution.
India, the world’s second most populous country, is under pressure to curb its carbon emissions and invest in clean energy as it upgrades infrastructure to meet the needs of its 1.36 billion people.
Mr Javadekar said his country was acting responsibly and doing everything it could to mitigate the problem. Its “present emission levels are just 6.8 per cent” of the global output, he said.
India already has erratic weather patterns triggered by climate change, with heatwaves, drought, flooding and cyclones. Several Himalayan glaciers, which feed rivers on which millions depend, are melting at an alarming rate.
A report by ActionAid International this month said about 63 million people in South Asia will be forced to migrate by 2050 due to the catastrophic effects of climate change, including
crop failure, floods, cyclones and droughts.
About 45 million will be affected in India alone, the development NGO said. Of 20 million people forced to move by climate change in 2020, 14 million were in India, it said.
India, which has an energy deficit, struggles to balance its energy and developmental needs with meeting its environmental commitments. It has promised to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 33-35 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.
“This was a huge commitment and we have already achieved 21 per cent. The remaining 12 to
13 per cent will be achieved in the next 10 years,” Mr Javadekar said.
India has set a target of creating a carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes through forest cover in the next 10 years.
The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched several environmental initiatives including a national clean air programme and projects to provide cooking gas to seven million households that previously used firewood or coal.
The government also plans to shut down old and polluting thermal power plants and invest in cleaner technology for coal-powered plants.
Experts in India say the results of these efforts are visible.
“India’s forest cover has considerably increased as per satellite imagery, and because of the enhancement of so much greenery and biomass, we have already achieved greenhouse gas reduction through carbon sequestration,” said Srikanta Panigrahi, director general of the Indian Institute of Sustainable Development think tank.
The government is providing tax breaks to encourage a switch to electric vehicles. Two-wheelers and three-wheelers must be electric by 2025 and 2023, with the aim of making 30 per cent of the country’s 250 million vehicles electric by 2030.