INDIA'S TARGETS ON CLIMATE CHANGE

1. Context

2. Net-zero

• The five-point target announced by Modi is to achieve net-zero emission status by 2070 is the one with the least clarity as of now.
• This is because this promise seems to have been made primarily to satisfy the international demand.
• At the same time, 2070 is a long way away and there is plenty of time to plan a roadmap to achieve that target.
• The other four targets have to be achieved in a much more immediate timeframe, by 2030. 

3. Emissions intensity and Renewables

• Two of these, which are about reducing emissions intensity and increasing the renewable mix in electricity generation, are already part of India’s official climate action plan, called the Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs, that have been submitted as part of the requirement under the Paris Agreement.
• In that NDC, submitted in 2015, India had promised to reduce its ‘emissions intensity’, or emissions per unit of GDP, by 33 percent to 35 percent from 2005 levels by the year 2020.
• Also, India had said it would ensure that at least 40 percent of its installed capacity of electricity generation in the year 2030 would come through non-fossil-fuel-based energy sources.
• The emissions intensity reduction target has been raised to 45 percent, and the share of renewables in installed electricity capacity has been increased to 50 percent.
• India was already on course to achieve both these existing targets well before the 2030 deadline. 

• The third promise made in India's NDC, about the increase in forest cover, did not find a mention in Modi's speech in Glasgow. And that is the only target that India is struggling to achieve.
• In the NDC, India has promised to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 billion to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent through forest and tree cover by the year 2030.
• According to official data, India's forest cover has been growing, and the pace of growth as of now is far from being commensurate with what is required to achieve the target.

5. Halfway to achieving non-fossil fuel targets already 

• The two other announcements made by Modi, about raising the installed capacity of renewable energy, and an absolute reduction of 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030, are not part of India’s existing commitments but are nonetheless linked.
• India had initially set out to install 20 GW of solar power capacity by the year 2020. That was later raised to 100 GW by 2022.
• Targets for wind and biogas were subsequently added, making it a renewable energy power capacity target of 175 GW for the year 2022.
• Two years ago, Modi enhanced this to 450 GW for the year 2030. None of this was ever part of the NDC, though. These were publicly announced targets that India had set for itself.

6. Absolute reduction in emissions

• The PM said India would ensure that it reduces 1 billion tonnes of emissions from its projected emissions between now and 2030.
• This is the first time that India has talked about making a reduction in its absolute emissions.
• All previous formulations used to be in terms of emission intensity, which is intensity per unit of GDP.
• However, the 1 billion tonne reduction promise is not unrelated to the emission intensity target.
• The emission intensity target is also about bending the emission trajectory.
• It seeks to ensure that while India's GDP as well as emissions would continue to grow, the rate of growth of emissions would be slower than that of GDP so that more GDP is created for the same amount of emission.
• The promise to reduce 1 billion tonnes of emission could, therefore, just be another way of reiterating the emission intensity target.

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