Sharing The Green Burden

Context: India’s net-zero commitment could make all the difference in humankind’s challenge to avoid climate catastrophe.

Issues with global climate change policy

• Irresponsibility by developed and large affluent countries: Most of them couldn’t evolve the national consensus needed for bearing the costs for reducing carbon emissions.
  • Eg: US couldn’t ratify the Kyoto protocol and unable to accomplish the goal of Paris Climate, that was signed in 2015.
• No technology transfer to developing countries, promises are stuck over concerns of intellectual property rights and trade deals.
• Promised financial transfers never got any traction within the rich countries: In upcoming UNFCCC’s COP-26, one can only hope that there is a qualitative transformation in this regard.
• Carbon tax collected in the wealthy countries could provide the viability gap grant funding but there is scope for biases against developing countries as they will need more time for transition.

Need of India’s net-zero commitment

• Overhanging climate emergency: IPCC reports that the world is heading towards unmitigated disasters including extreme weather events demanding a strong and immediate action.
• Global trend: 125 nations have been committed to become net-zero. Major global corporations are in a competitive mode in announcing their own net-zero targets. India cannot stay out.
• Toward technological innovations: Green hydrogen promises to offer solutions across a wide range of hard to abate sectors, but there is need for large scale investment and infrastructure upgradation.
  • Committing to net zero would make India competitive in emerging new green and sustainable global economy.
• India already leading green energy transition: India is producing the cheapest electricity by using solar power and wind energy.
  • Eg: Price of solar power fall from over Rs 16 a unit to less than Rs 3 in around 10 years.
• Pushing low carbon-growth: India’s per capita emissions could rise till they reach the levels of the developed countries which are on a sharp declining curve.
  • It implies, for contributing towards global net-zero, India should reach net-zero along with the US, the EU and Japan by 2050.
• Late mover’s advantage in achieving net zero: As India’s energy consumption must grow manifold and by going the renewable energy way, it can avoid the costs of winding down the large fossil fuel-based energy systems that the advanced countries have today.
• Scope for leveraging partnerships: QUAD could align itself restricting global warming to 1.5 degrees and the achievement of net-zero preferably by 2050 considering national circumstances.