As the January 31 deadline to submit its emission targets under the Copenhagen Accord approaches, India on Wednesday kicked-off the process to chalkout a roadmap and analyse cost to achieve low-carbon growth.
"We will identify various options and scope available to reduce energy use in major carbon emission sectors such as steel, power and agriculture," economist Kirit Parikh, head of the expert group on strategies for low carbon development told reporters here after its first meeting.
The Group was constituted by the Planning Commission to achieve 20-25 per cent reduction in emission intensity by 2010 on 2005 levels as was announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year at Copenhagen climate meet.
Contradictory to the government's claim that it does not need any international fund to meet the emission reduction targets, one of the main mandate of the Group is to make cost benefit analysis for the money to be required for mitigation and adaption to tackle climate change.
The committee will do a detailed analysis to find out whether or not it was possible to reach to that (announced) target without additional money," Parikh said.
"The Committee will also calculate what additional can we do if we get additional amount," he added.
However, when asked if India had been haste in offering targets at Copenhagen without analysing cost it would incur, Parikh said, "the number (20-25 per cent) was based on the various studies made in the past and now we have to chalkout a roadmap and identify the additional cost if there are."
"So that we can make claim on others that look this is the cost involved in taking the target and we need to be compensated for it," Parikh said.
He felt that it was not difficult to reach to the announced targets without additional funds given the country's emission intensity had decreased 17.6 per cent between 1990 and 2005 an that "too without major investment in clean technologies."
The 26-member committee also proposes to work on identifying the viable policy action which could be easily adopted by the stakeholders concerned.
"We should have wide consultation process and invite serious suggestions from the public and hold meetings across the country and submit an interim report by April and a final report by September to the Planning Commission," Parikh added.
