Chasing mirage of net-zero carbon emissions

AT the annual climate meeting, formally known as the Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), headline-grabbing announcements are much sought after. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has provided this opportunity in the Glasgow COP26 that got under way this week. He announced that India would achieve the target of net-zero emissions by 2070. By 2030, the country’s non-fossil energy capacity would be raised to 500 GW and by then, half of its energy requirements would be met from renewable sources of energy.

This translates into a reduction of the total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes between 2022 and 2030. Another key takeaway from the PM’s speech was a reduction in the carbon intensity of the economy by less than 45 per cent by 2030.

Going by the implications of the carbon emission reduction and the new emission trajectory mentioned, the announcement amounts to a shift in India’s climate policy. This is the first time after signing the Paris Agreement that India has made an unconditional commitment of emission reduction. That’s why it is surprising that the shift has come without any public discussion domestically.

Net zero is a relatively new addition to the climate jargon. The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013 had stated that “limiting global temperature change means limiting the cumulative or stock of carbon emissions in the atmosphere.” And to stop global warming, net anthropogenic or manmade additions of carbon into the atmosphere should reach zero.

This concept found its way into the 2015 Paris Agreement which stipulated that countries should aim to reach “global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible” to achieve “a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of the century.”

The 2018 report from the IPCC further refined its earlier projection by saying that the world would have to reach net-zero emissions of carbon by 2050 if it had to limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C and avoid catastrophic impacts of climate change.

If a country is emitting ‘x’ amount of greenhouse gases, then it should take steps, such as promoting renewable energy, to reduce emissions and also take offsetting measures that absorb ‘x’ amount of carbon, with the net emissions becoming zero.

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal Seven on achieving “affordable and clean energy” focuses on reducing emissions and promoting renewables. Against this backdrop, several countries have announced their own net-zero pledges. Sweden has made its 2045 net-zero targets into law, while the UK has legislated that it will reach net zero by 2050. China has committed ‘carbon neutrality’ before 2060, and now India has announced 2070 as the target year to achieve net zero. Before India’s announcement, 49 countries and the European Union had pledged a net-zero target, covering more than 50 per cent of the global GDP and a third of the population.

Net zero is a pledge that more and more countries are making to ward off criticism of climate inaction. How the countries operationalise or translate these pledges into concrete roadmaps and plans will determine if these pledges will have any impact on carbon emission trajectories. At present, as the analysis of the United Nations Environment Programme released last week found, these pledges are vague and not consistent with the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of the respective countries. All signatories to the Paris Agreement are supposed to submit their NDCs and update them to reflect the pledges made by them.

While making the net zero announcement in Glasgow, Modi specifically spoke about the transition to renewable energy. He said, “India’s non-fossil fuel energy has increased by more than 25 per cent in the last seven years” and that “now it has reached 40 per cent of our energy mix.”

This statement is far from reality. About 80 per cent of India’s power supplies come from coal, gas and biomass. Renewables — solar and wind — account for a little over 20 per cent, not 40 per cent.

The biggest stumbling block to India’s net zero ambition is coal. As of now, any roadmap for phasing out coal is absent. Another issue is finance and technology to fund this massive transition to clean energy. Committing to a transition year without a credible and fair system enshrined in the principle of “common but differentiated responsibility” is also a clear indicator of India’s shifting climate policy.

The PM said that “India expects developed countries to provide climate finance of one trillion dollars at the earliest”, but did not link its emission trajectories with climate finance.

To reach their targets, the industrialised West is seeking to develop a new carbon market as a part of the exercise to operationalise the Paris Agreement. The issue of working out a mechanism for carbon emission trading has been hanging fire since 2015. To move towards the goal of reducing emissions, two mechanisms were proposed. All countries agreed to prepare and implement the NDCs. The Paris Agreement also provided for a framework in which countries could “cooperatively use carbon markets” to achieve their targets while promoting climate adaptation measures. Article 6 allows countries to finance emission reduction projects in other countries and account those reductions towards their targets. It is a successor to the Clean Development Mechanism, which was introduced to implement the now-defunct Kyoto Protocol.

Irrespective of the outcome of the Glasgow talks, India has committed to a carbon reduction pathway leading to net-zero emissions by 2070 and a substantial shift to green energy by 2030.

This can’t be achieved without a clear roadmap of policies, programmes and actions, particularly when energy consumption is set to rise. Environmentally unfriendly policies will have to be rolled back. We need clear plans for sectors like infrastructure, transport, industrial production, building energy and forestry and a huge investment in R&D. The government must also ensure that that transition is just and equitable.

Without all this, net zero will remain a mirage.