Climate Change - A huge threat

Amongst the global environmental issues, one that has figured consistently is climate change.  Keeping in mind the scale and enormity of the challenge is so high that all countries feel bound to discuss the global climate and to explore solutions before it becomes a threat to the world.

No doubt, it requires urgent and immediate actions by the entire international community.  There should always be discussions across countries to generate a possible approach.  Though the Paris Agreement of 2015, is embodied it proves to be inadequate because of its inability to push the world towards target-oriented ambitious actions. 

Whilst Global Climate Change is a challenge for India, the question is can India play any role in advancing international actions to meet the challenge of climate change? 

India’s role in the Paris Agreement on climate change in securing international consensus is well-recognised. For India, climate change represents not just an issue of emissions reduction, but also looks at how it can manage the adverse impacts on its populace. 

G20 in 2022, when India assumes the role of Presidency, will therefore have to envision the challenges and to compute of securing a global consensus on future actions despite diverse approaches of G20 countries and align them to stabilize the climate below to a certain degree.

The Paris Agreement instructs that the developed countries have the responsibility to lead, emerging economies like India which are members of G20 have to demonstrate an equal degree of leadership in vision and actions.   Though this process has been deferred due to the global crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic.

There is widely held scientific and political consensus on how to contain the emission and if there is global warming then how we can curb the level of 1.5 degree. 

Even before consideration for the Paris Agreement had started, India was amongst the early countries that pledged to a voluntary goal of emissions intensity reduction.  So, India’s role is prominent and significant for the global efforts to address climate change.

It is assumed that in 2050 the share of low-emission final energy in the transport sector rises to at least 35–65 per cent while the energy demand in buildings would need to be halved. In an earlier session, there has been the general backdrop of the discussions on global strategies for addressing climate change.  Though, the UN Secretary-General even convened a climate summit of the heads of government to discuss this matter to the pursuit of the climate stabilisation goal and how to explore them. 

In the Paris Agreement, it has been agreed upon that all countries keeping in mind the national circumstances, prepare a long-term low greenhouse gas emissions development strategy.

It is a challenge for India and not so blessed, since many developed countries like Germany, France, UK and Japan have the advantage of being early movers with access to cleaner energy resources and technologies. 

India is on track to achieve at least two of the 2030 targets i.e., emissions intensity and renewable energy generation capacity in full measure.

One should understand that the energy efficiency programmes initiated through regulatory and market-driven policies have helped reduce the energy intensity of the economy as well as emissions from industrial processes.

It is important that India should have a clear plan to address emissions that emanates from sectors that are growing fast like industry, transport and building/ infrastructure sectors.

Interestingly, in 2019 at the climate summit held, in their independent national capacities India and Sweden, encouraged to jointly organise a business leadership group tasked with goals to address the emissions in the industrial sector.  Further, India can collaborate with other domestic and global stakeholders to suggest options and initiatives for growth.

If one is thinking about how to convert the results into CO2 emissions and make a beginning for CO2 trading, the existing scheme PAT [Perform, Achieve & Trade] is currently dedicated to achieving energy efficiency goals under the energy efficiency regulations.

As all carbon-intensive sectors keep growing, thus it is important that these specific sectors need to be in the mainstream in order to achieve the climate goal.  

A supportive framework and international cooperation are needed to accelerate the major economics are as follows:

• All large industries having the desire to accelerate to low or zero-carbon technologies in the relevant sectors may be encouraged to join s based on the best available technology.
• Countries that may be interested in promoting decreased carbon intensity in the industrial sector through specific schemes.
• A Coalition of industries and countries could be formed aimed at promoting technology solutions through working groups and partnerships.
• The upcoming meeting of G20 in 2022, provides an opportunity to India as well as other member countries of G20 to express and renew their commitment to framing and launching a long-term low carbon strategy.
• It is out of place to mention that global climate change presents a huge existential threat to the world and requires that urgent and immediate actions are taken by all members of the international community to arrest global warming. 
• Since India is a leader of the global south and as a signatory to the Paris Agreement, the challenges implicit, have to be implemented seriously and meaningfully. 

It is important that India should come up with a long-term low emission development strategy preferably before the Global Stock Take (GST) in 2023.  During the course of the GST, the low emission development strategies can become the main core of the discussion, for assessment of the impact of proposed actions on global goal and, to the extent possible, for revision of future targets.

The huge technological transformations in the energy and other systems can modify the global emissions and thus meet the global goal of stabilising the climate.