Welcoming Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of enhancing India’s ambition, including declaring that India will go net zero in 2070, at the COP26, experts and stakeholders have also expressed caution that the devil lay in the detail and the actual implementation will matter more than mere announcements.
At the high-level World Leaders’ Summit at COP26 on Monday, Modi had announced, apart from the net zero target year, that India will enhance its targets to combat climate change by increasing its non-fossil fuel energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030, meet 50 per cent of its energy requirement from renewable energy by 2030, reduce its projected carbon emissions by 1 billion tons from now till 2030 and bring down the carbon intensity of its economy to less than 45 per cent.
“India’s national targets, announced by the Prime Minister, are bold and ambitious, but they will be immensely challenging as well to achieve. Going by our comparatively low contribution to global emissions, coupled with the fact that our economy needs to grow and meet the energy needs of millions of poor citizens, we did not need to make such an ambitious pledge – but these are a challenge to the already rich world to step up – the time for procrastination and prevarication is over,” Centre for Science and Environment’s Sunita Narain said.
The commitment to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 1 billion tonnes also means that India has decided to transform the energy system at a time when there is still the challenge of reaching affordable energy to millions in the country.
“As far as the net-zero 2070 is concerned, India’s target matches the commitment of the already industrialised. The fact is that the world must reach net-zero by 2050, which means that the OECD countries should get there by 2030 and China by 2040. The net zero target is not equitable or ambitious,” she said.
Stating that Modi’s goals of climate action demand universal strategies from all nations and that India’s growth path must increasingly include sustainability as a concomitant objective, CII President, T.V. Narendran, said that Indian industry is making significant progress in the climate mitigation mission and viewed Prime Minister Modi’s commitments as an opportunity to inculcate sustainability actions across its operations, goods and services.
“CII stands with the Prime Minister in ensuring that India meets its commitments for a cleaner, greener planet.”
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) Director General, Vibha Dhawan, in a tweet, said: “Announcing the five points highlighting India’s Climate Action along with the year of achieving Net Zero is a huge step for the country both in terms of short-term and long-term climate action strategies. India has taken a pragmatic approach by announcing concrete targets in the short term by 2030 as well as achieving carbon neutrality in the long term”.
Modi’s announcements, especially the net zero target, sent shockwaves across the western world with mixed bag reactions. Referring to that, Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, Navroz Dubash said: “Overseas media will focus on India’s net zero by 2070 statement. But while it may mean something diplomatically, it will not be what drives change in India.”
“Much more intriguing are the announcements on railways, on non-fossil capacity and the benchmark for renewable energy. These are what give scope for India to drive a low-carbon development transition in the next decade,” he said.
But some experts have feared that with no clarity about details as yet, India seems to have missed out on no new coal opportunity.
“Given the changed economics of the energy sector, with renewables and battery storage now cheaper than the new coal, India was well positioned to commit to No New Coal and a coal peak. The fact that it didn’t is worrying and a huge missed opportunity,” think tank Climate Risks Horizons CEO Ashish Fernandes said.
“What’s the plan to stop growing our coal and oil emissions specifically and start phasing down? India cannot afford, for both financial and ecological reasons, to continue expanding its coal sector,” he added.
