Indias New Green Revolution

India's latest commitment to fight climate change defends the country's

right to keep pumping out more emissions. But in the run up to Paris, it's
still a big leap forward.

BY NEIL BHATIYA-OCTOBER 2, 2015

The stakes for Indias contribution in fighting climate change are high. As the fourth
largest producer of greenhouse gases, assuming the European Unions emissions are
counted collectively, what India is willing and able to do to curb its emissions will
have a major impact on whether the international community can avoid runaway global
warming. Under most business-as-usual scenarios if it doesnt change its behavior
the country is on the hook for some of the most significant emissions growth in the
coming decades. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, India, along
with China, will be responsible for nearly half of the growth in global energy demand.
And as the world has readied itself for Decembers summit in Paris, which will outline
how the global community will deal with the increasingly pressing issue of how to deal
with climate change, Indias plan has been a looming question mark.

On Thursday afternoon, the world received its answer. After months of speculation,
India finally released its formal greenhouse gas emissions plan for the COP 21
conference. And the answer is promising.
Fossil fuels will still make up a large percentage of the global energy mix until at least
2040 even with robust growth of renewables. This is particularly true of India. The
Indian INDC partially acknowledges this, to the extent that, while promising action on
climate change, it also asks the developed world for equitable carbon and
development space in essence, arguing that since India has been responsible for a
historically low proportion of emissions activity, it cannot be asked to make drastic
emissions cuts at a time when it needs as much effort as possible directed at fighting
endemic poverty. If developed nations wish India to be a responsible player on climate
change, this plan argues, the country needs assistance, especially financial, in
aggressively adopting new low- and zero-carbon technologies
Landing on the day of the United Nations deadline, the intended, nationally determined
contribution (INDC) provides a building block for what will be decided in Paris at the
end of the year. And Indias contributions are a critical piece of the coming
negotiations. The offering is, considering Indias starting point as a very poor country
(in both per capita income and energy access), an ambitious first step. While this plan
does not include absolute emissions cuts and, indeed, it leaves open the possibility
India will continue to use carbon intensive coal for years to come, it is also putting
forward a willingness to substantially raise its capacity for renewables deployment,
provided that its partners in developed nations follow through on promises for financial
flows and cooperation on technology.
So what has India pledged to do?
There are two headline announcements. The first is a promised reduction in Indias
emissions intensity the ratio of greenhouse gases produced to GDP.As India has
hundreds of millions of people still mired in poverty and living without electricity, the
goal is to keep growing, but make that growth, and the energy production that will fuel
it, greener. To this end, India pledged to cut the intensity of its emissions to 33 to 35
percent by 2030 against what it was in 2005 (slightly below estimates that it would be
a 35 to 40 percent cut). In the Copenhagen climate accord in 2009, India had pledged
a 20 to 25 percent cut by 2020 a target it is capable of meeting under its current
policy and investment frameworks (according to data collected by BP, India had
been averaging a 1.1 percent decline in emissions intensity over a 10 year period from
2004 to 2014, even as GDP grew by an average of 7 percent since 2010).

The second is a new, higher target for the countrys non-fossil fuel based energy
installation. In January, the Indian government updated its solar target from 20GW to
100GW to 175GW by 2022, with an overall renewable energy goal of 175GW.
According to the INDC, India will further ramp up ambition between 2022 and 2030,
aiming to install around 350GW of capacity or 40 percent of its 2030 energy mix
through non-fossil fuel sources. This number includes not only the renewable targets,
but also expansion in nuclear power and small-scale hydrological power.
The mitigation side (i.e., efforts to reduce the future release of greenhouse gas
emissions) is also includes existing measures to increase the cost of fuel through
continuing reforms to subsidies and taxes. The 2015 budget had slashed subsidies for
petroleum, a move made easier by the global decline in crude oil prices, though that
deregulation may be delayed due to politicalfactors as elections approach. India also
plans to continue increasing its forest cover, which will help pull carbon dioxide out of
the atmosphere.
To be clear, under this plan, India will continue to emit a lot of carbon dioxide, and
those emissions would continue to increase. The significant thing is that the rate of
that growth would be slower.
There are real and serious bright spots here, though. The renewable energy ambitions
outlined are extremely significant and should be encouraged. Mobilization of the
Green Climate Fund, the U.N.-backed mechanism for channeling financing from
developed nations to developing ones to fight climate change, can assist with this.
While the plan didnt include a peak emissions year or national carbon pricing policy,
as Chinas announced plansdo, that is not a reason to feel disappointed that
something more ambitious wasnt put forward. India has stated it has a desire to be a
constructive player in Paris.
There are a lot of difficult questions still to be addressed in those negotiations,
including a desire by India that developed countries make their plans on finance and
technology transfer concrete at Paris. The INDC is quite specific on the need for any
agreement in Paris to include provisions for the rapid dispersal of capital to finance
these changes, as well as the transfer of clean energy technology, either free of
intellectual property rights costs or with the Green Climate Fund picking up the tab.
India also envisages financing needs for capacity building the training and
upgrading of the intellectual capital of those who would implement these various
policies. Prior to Chinas significant contribution to financing other developing nations,
there was an expectation that Indias request for financial support would be robust.

Certainly India, and the wider South Asia region, is hurting from the effects of climate
change. According to a 2014 analysis prepared by the Asian Development Bank,
South Asia could lose around 2 percent of its GDP annually by 2050 from climate
change effects. And that doesnt even include the costs of extreme weather events like
the typhoons and floods that are likely knock-on effects of climate change. If nothing is
done to fix the problem, those costs could rise to 8 percent of GDP by 2100.
Consequently, India has been a frequent voice in asking for adequate, predictable,
and long-term finance to be directed from developed nations to developing ones. The
INDC reflects this, estimating that the total cost of executing Indias climate change
plans would be an eye-watering $2.5 trillion between 2015 and 2030.
This desire to ensure that developed countries followed through on granting the
financing they promised led some experts to speculate that India, much like Mexico,
would offer a two-track INDC: one more modest set of policies and plan that assumed
no external financial support, a second more ambitious plan, demonstrating that India
could do a lot more if it were assured that the global community would pony up. The
plan certainly references financial assistance and technology transfer as a
requirement for helping Indias renewable energy goals, but the INDC puts forward
targets that are not couched in an if this, then that manner, mandating additional
international support.
What the plan makes crystal clear, however, is that theres still a lot of work to be
done.
The plan only touches on what is likely the most important source of carbon emissions
in India: the unabated use of coal for electricity. Coal is Indias primary source of
energy, and the most carbon-intensive of the fossil fuels, and India is still ramping up
its use nationwide production grew 6.4 percent in 2014 with little sign of appreciable
slowing in 2015. The INDC states explicitly that coal will continue to dominate power
generation in the future and mentioned developing clean coal technologies. A team
of researchers at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, analyzing policy
models, found that even ones that assumed low-carbon planning scenariosprojected a
doubling of coal production by 2030. While India has modestly raised the costs of
using coal through a tax, it is unlikely that this, on its own, breaks up Indias
attachment to the dirty fuel.
That this will not be part of Indias 2030 goals will be disappointing to many climate
change activists. The Indians have simply argued that such goals are out of the
bounds of what is realistic given their still-low development trajectory.

Its important to remember that Indias plan is a reaction to not only international
pressure from countries such as the United States, but also the concerns of its people.
Which is really to say, its useful to remember that Indias contributions to the U.N.
process dont exist in a vacuum those contributions fit in quite well with Indias
diplomatic priorities. Action on climate change and the rapid expansion of energy has,
over the course of the Obama administration, been an important component of
cooperation with India, as evidenced by its prominence in the
bilateral meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Modi at the United
Nations General Assembly. Nothing would derail that relationship as quickly as India
not contributing substantially to a strong and durable agreement in Paris.
The domestic political context should not be overlooked. As in China, the public in
India is concerned about both climate change and particulate matter air pollution,
much of which comes from domestic wood or other biofuel-burning cook stoves.
According to recent research from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, toxic air will
likely kill 30,000 residents of New Delhi in 2025. That death toll could rise to 50,000
people by 2050 without significant policy changes. With respect to climate change, 73
percent of Indians polled by Pew said they were very concerned about climate
change; that number rises to nearly 90 percent in Indian states in the north, whose
economies are based on agriculture fed by monsoon rains.
Popular pressure at the bottom will contribute to the calculations made by Indias
leadership to try to push forward on action on climate change, though at a pace of
their choosing, and provided it is assured that developed nations will have kept
previous promises, especially about money.
When the international community sits down at the table in Paris at the end of the
year, it will be confident that India is trying its best to grapple with a profound dilemma.
It has a responsibility to its people to give them electricity and economic growth. It is
also responsible for insulating them from the worst effects of climate change, some of
which are happening now, and some which are more that certain to occur in the future,
and are being driven by that very economic growth. This plan does offer any
guarantees about surmounting that dilemma, but it charts a way forward for India to be
a constructive player in the global fight against climate change.
NARINDER NANU/AFP/Getty Images

Posted by Thavam