NEW DELHI: Environment minister Prakash Javadekar said on Monday that India is in "advanced stage" of finalising its national climate action plan. Once finalised, the national climate action plan, which are known as intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) in the UN climate jargon, will have to be taken up for Cabinet approval before it can be submitted to the UN climate change secretariat. New Delhi is likely to be in a position to submit its plans to the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat by third week September.
"We have had consultations with all stakeholders—ministries, industry, states, civil society, experts and are now in the process of finalising India's intended nationally determined contributions," Javadekar said. Sources close to the developments told ET that the once finalised the environment ministry will move a Cabinet note for approval.
Every country is supposed to provide its national climate action plan, ahead of the United Nations-sponsored climate summit in Paris in December. Over the past few months, the environment ministry has undertaken extensive consultations with relevant ministries, with state governments, civil society and experts, and industry to make a determination of what India should include in its national climate plan, which will be an international pledge, as its contribution to the global effort to tackle climate change. A review of the progress made so far was taken up by the Prime Minister's Office on Saturday. The meeting was attended by representatives of Niti Aayog, and Central Electricity Authority as well.
The minister said "India will submit a comprehensive INDC, which will not just focus on mitigation, but also include adaptation." This is likely to include a roster of the kind of technology support India is looking at. However, Javadekar did not elucidate whether India's INDC would include a conditional target option, which can be achieved with international financial and technology support.
The INDCs or climate action plans, as agreed to at the previous round of UN-sponsored climate negotiations in Lima in December last year, are supposed to encapsulate measures that each country would take in the period between 2020 and 2025 or 2030 to tackle climate change. This would be pledges or contributions that each country makes to address the global challenge of ensuring that temperature rise is restricted to below 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. While the focus is on reducing the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced, the key contributors to global warming, countries can spell out measures to adapt to climate change, financial and technological support for efforts to tackle climate change.
India's climate action plan will put forward a clear target for reducing the amount of carbon dioxide produced for every dollar of economic output, or gross domestic product, by 2030. New Delhi will include in its pledge a qualitative description of the measures it will take to meet the target. Sources close to the development also indicated that New Delhi's submission will stress on India's developmental needs, thereby providing a context to its plans. ET had reported on July 27 that India had set aside earlier plans of providing quantitative targets for each of the measures it proposes to take to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions over five or 10 years beginning 2020.
The range of emission intensity reduction is yet to be determined. Dispelling questions about whether New Delhi would be aggressive in setting its target, a senior official involved in the preparation of the national climate plan said, "India's contribution will be ambitious but achievable." New Delhi's contribution would include descriptive mention of the renewable energy push, planned afforestation efforts, and the cess on coal and its use for research and development of clean technologies and other efforts that would help meet the emission intensity reduction target.
While India plans to provide a comprehensive climate action plan which will touch upon mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology, and capacity building, it is unlikely to provide specific sector wise targets, this would avoid being locked into pledges. Much of India's infrastructure is yet to be built, it has embarked on an aggressive and ambitious "make in India" manufacturing programme, and a "smart cities" programme. Providing detailed and comprehensive commitments as part of its action plan would mean locking to commitments. Many in government and experts see this as a move that could limit India's actions.
Most of the climate action plan submitted so far, particularly those by major economies provide absolute and relative emission reduction commitments and sectoral measures being undertaken to meet that goal. The major economies like the United States, China, andEuropean Union have provided specific targets for relative and absolute reductions in carbon dioxide pollution. "The trend has been to provide top line reductions. We have been undertaking detailed consultations but given the trend, we are thinking in terms of a top line contribution as well," an official involved in the exercise explained. India is unlikely to commit to sectoral commitments as well.
"India has always taken its international commitments seriously. It is no different with the INDCs. While our plan will be ambitious, we don't want to limit our options," an official explained. India's INDC will, however, detail all the efforts that are being taken to tackle climate change. How these efforts are represented is yet to be firmed. "We will ensure that India's development space is safeguarded," a senior official said.
The environment ministry had commissioned three projection studies on India's emission profiles, which were conducted by Teri (The Energy and Resources Institute), Integrated Research for Action (IRADe) and Development and the Institute of Economic Growth. A senior official involved in the planning process said, "These studies have provided a range of scenarios and we have been consulting with ministries, states and other stakeholders to determine what the target range of the reduction should be."
The Planning Commission-appointed Expert Group on Low Carbon Strategies for Inclusive Growth, set up in January 2010 following the Copenhagen talks, said in its final report of April 2014 that with an 8% to 9% rate of economic growth, India can take measures to effect a reduction of 42% in emission intensity from 2007 levels. A recent study led by Navroz Dubash of the Centre for Policy Research analyses seven recent India-focused modelling studies that cover carbon dioxide emissions from the energy and industry sectors until 2030 and finds that emission intensity reduction, depending on the assumptions, can range between 40% and 64% from 2005 levels by 2030.
