Why in the News?

• Recently, the US President’s Special Envoy on Climate visited India to rekindle the climate change partnership between the two countries.
• In its bid to reclaim global climate leadership, the US is widely expected to commit itself to a net-zero emission target for 2050.
• Several other countries, including the UK and France, have already enacted laws promising to achieve a net-zero emission scenario by the middle of the century. Even China has promised to go net-zero by 2060.

What is net-zero?

• Net-zero, which is also referred to as carbon-neutrality, does not mean that a country would bring down its emissions to zero. Rather, net-zero is a state in which a country’s emissions are compensated by absorption and removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
• Absorption of the emissions can be increased by creating more carbon sinks such as forests, while removal of gases from the atmosphere requires futuristic technologies such as carbon capture and storage.
• This way, it is even possible for a country to have negative emissions, if the absorption and removal exceed the actual emissions. A good example is Bhutan which is often described as carbon-negative because it absorbs more than it emits.
• It is being argued that global carbon neutrality by 2050 is the only way to achieve the Paris Agreement target of keeping the planet’s temperature from rising beyond 2°C compared to pre-industrial times.
• Theoretically, a country can become carbon-neutral at its current level of emissions, or even by increasing its emissions, if it is able to absorb or remove more. From the perspective of the developed world, it is a big relief, because now the burden is shared by everyone, and does not fall only on them.

India’s objections

• • India is the only one opposing this target because it is likely to be the most impacted by it. India’s position is unique. Over the next two to three decades, India’s emissions are likely to grow at the fastest pace in the world, as it presses for higher growth to pull hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
  • No amount of afforestation or reforestation would be able to compensate for the increased emissions. Most of the carbon removal technologies right now are either unreliable or very expensive.
  • The net-zero goal does not figure in the 2015 Paris Agreement, the new global architecture to fight climate change. The Paris Agreement only requires every signatory to take the best climate action it can. Countries need to set five- or ten-year climate targets for themselves, and demonstrably show they have achieved them. 
  • Implementation of the Paris Agreement has begun only this year. Most of the countries have submitted targets for the 2025 or 2030 period. 
  • India has been arguing that instead of opening up a parallel discussion on net-zero targets outside of the Paris Agreement framework, countries must focus on delivering on what they have already promised. New Delhi is hoping to lead by example. It is well on its way to achieving its targets under the Paris Agreement, and looks likely to overachieve them.
  • Several studies have shown that India is the only G-20 country whose climate actions are compliant to the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global temperatures from rising beyond 2°C. 
  • New Delhi also repeatedly points to the fact that the developed nations have never delivered on their past promises and commitments. No major country achieved the emission-cut targets assigned to them under the Kyoto Protocol, the climate regime preceding the Paris Agreement.
  • India has been arguing that the 2050 carbon-neutrality promise might meet a similar fate, although some countries are now binding themselves in law. It has been insisting that the developed countries should, instead, take more ambitious climate actions now, to compensate for the unfulfilled earlier promises.

• At the same time, it has been saying that it does not rule out the possibility of achieving carbon-neutrality by 2050 or 2060. Just that, it does not want to make an international commitment so much in advance.

Related Information

India’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for Paris agreement 

• To reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels.
• To achieve about 40 per cent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030, with the help of transfer of technology and low-cost international finance, including from the Green Climate Fund.
• To create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.

Reference:

1. https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/why-india-opposes-net-zero-7263422/https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/why-india-opposes-net-zero-7263422/