Net-zero and the Paris agreement GS: 3

 

Context:

• Despite the net zero campaign by a number of countries and non-state actors, the timing of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions reaching net zero is not the critical parameter for the safety of humanity. As the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made it clear, limiting the increase in the world’s average temperature from pre-industrial levels to those agreed in the Paris Agreement requires global cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide to be capped at the global carbon budget.

 

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.

 

 

 

A call for net-zero:

• A very active campaign has been going on for the last two years to get every country to sign on to a net-zero goal for 2050. 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.
• The net-zero formulation does not assign any emission reduction targets on any country.

 

Net-zero and the Paris agreement:

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.
• The other requirement is that targets for every subsequent time-frame should be more ambitious than the previous one.

 

What about India? What are its objections?

• India, the world’s third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, after the US and China, is the only major player holding out.
• India is the only one opposing this target because it is likely to be the most impacted by it.

 

Challenges unique to India:

1. 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.
2. No amount of afforestation or reforestation would be able to compensate for the increased emissions.
3. Most of the carbon removal technologies right now are either unreliable or very expensive.

 

 

Why India shouldn’t sign on Net Zero?

• Not part of any Protocols: Neither the Paris Agreement nor climate science requires that net zero be reached individually by countries by 2050. Paris accord requires only global achievement of this goal “in the second half of the century”
• Net Zero Ignores Equity: Claims that the world “must” reach specific goals by 2030 or 2050 are the product of specific economic models for climate action. These are designed to achieve the Paris goals by the “lowest cost” methods, foregoing equity and climate justice. 
• Against Historical Responsibility: Less than a fifth of the world has been responsible for three-fifths of all past cumulative emissions, the U.S. and the EU alone having contributed a whopping 45%. For India to declare net zero now is to accede to the further over-appropriation of the global carbon budget by a few. 
• India’s Commitment won’t alter much: India’s contribution to global emissions, in both stock and flow, is so disproportionately low that any sacrifice on its part can do nothing to save the world. 
• Bad Precedence of West: The failure of the developed world to meet its pre-2020 obligations along with its refusal to acknowledge this provides little confidence for India with regard to commitments announced by West.

 

Suggestions for India

• India is responsible for no more than 4.37% cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide since the pre-industrial era, even though it is home to more than a sixth of humanity.
• India’s per capita emissions are less than half the world average, less than one-eighth of the U.S.’s.
• For India to declare net zero now is to accede to the further over-appropriation of the global carbon budget by a few.
• India’s contribution to global emissions, in both stock and flow, is so disproportionately low that any sacrifice on its part can do nothing to save the world.
• India, in enlightened self-interest, must now stake its claim to a fair share of the global carbon budget.
• Technology transfer and financial support, together with “negative emissions”, if the latter succeeds, can compensate for the loss of the past.
• Such a claim by India provides it greater, and much-needed long-term options.
• It enables the responsible use of coal, its major fossil fuel resource, and oil and gas, to bootstrap itself out of lower-middle-income economy status and eradicate poverty, hunger and malnutrition for good.
• India’s resource-strapped small industries sector needs expansion and modernisation.
• The agriculture sector, the second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions for India after energy, needs to double its productivity and farmers’ incomes and build resilience.
• Infrastructure for climate resilience in general is critical to future adaptation to climate change.
• All of these will require at least the limited fossil fuel resources made available through a fair share of the carbon budget.

 

Suggestion by TERI:

• • Focus on Energy Efficiency:
    • Will need energy efficient buildings, lighting, appliances and industrial practices to meet the net-zero goal.
  • Use of Biofuels:
    • Can help reduce emissions from light commercial vehicles, tractors in agriculture.
    • In aviation, the only practical solution for reducing emissions is greater use of biofuels, until hydrogen technology gains scale.
  • Carbon Sequestration:
    • India will have to rely on natural and man-made carbon sinks to soak up those emissions. Trees can capture 0.9 billion tons, the country will need carbon capture technologies to sequester the rest.
  • Carbon Pricing:
    • India, which already taxes coal and petroleum fuels, should consider putting a tax on emissions to drive change.
  • Deploying lower-carbon Energy:
    • There are four main types of low-carbon energy: wind, solar, hydro or nuclear power. The first three are renewable, which means these are good for the environment – as natural resources are used (such as wind or sun) to produce electricity.
    • Deploying lower carbon energy would help address both domestic and international climate challenges while simultaneously improving the economic well-being of India’s citizens.

 

Conclusion

Without restriction of their future cumulative emissions by the big emitters, to their fair share of the global carbon budget, and the corresponding temperature target that they correspond to made clear, India cannot sign on to net zero.