India's Climate Commitments & Policy Missions
Understanding how national commitments are actually acted upon!
Climate change commitments & policies have become the topics of conversation these days.
But there are so many terminologies & jargons that it gets confusing to understand which are these policies, and who are these organisational bodies which are responsible for implementing them. Let’s try & understand them together.
Before we try understanding India’s policies & commitments, let’s understand the “why” behind it.
Why are countries committing?
Given the rising concerns around climate change & the need for global cooperation, 196 countries globally have legally pledged to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels. This happened under the Paris Agreement in Dec 2015 (fairly recent!). Countries have also committed to net zero targets as shown below:
India has also committed to reach net zero emissions by 2070 in COP26 last year.
And when we start to think about India, we have to understand where the emissions are coming from.
Understanding India’s GHG Emissions
India emits a total of 3.72 B tonnes CO2e every year. To give you a perspective, that’s more than the entire European Union’s carbon emissions for a year. Most of these emissions come from the Energy sector owing to India being a developing country largely relying on Coal for energy needs.
The image below shows India’s breakdown of emissions across sectors.
Source: Climate Trace
India’s targets
The three major climate commitments by India are:
#1 Paris Agreement Targets (2015)
» Lower emissions intensity of its GDP by 33-35% compared to 2005 levels by 2030;
» Increase total cumulative electricity generation from fossil free energy sources to 40% by 2030;
» Create additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tons through additional forest and tree cover.
#2 2020 Pledge (2020)
Reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 20–25% in 2020 below 2005 levels.
Update: India has achieved the lower end of its 2020 target and reduced its emissions intensity (excl. agricultural emissions) by 21%.
#3 Net Zero by 2070 (COP26 / 2021)
To understand the comprehensiveness of India’s net zero pledge, the below graph compares the design elements of net zero pledges across the world:
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Now that we understand India’s yearly emissions, and the commitments - let’s look at how the system is tackling these.
As any other policy initiative, the government of India has set up ministries responsible for each aspect of Climate action.
As a crucial fact, the current period is very critical for India’s policies because a lot of targets across the board are based on 2022 - so it’s like the night before the exam!:)
India’s Climate policies
INDIA’S Climate Change Policy can be traced back to the year 2008 when the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) was announced by the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change (the Council). The NAPCC has eight missions, namely:
The National Solar Mission
The National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency
The National Mission on Sustainable Habitat
The National Water Mission
The National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem
The National Mission for a “Green India”
The National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture
The National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change
The missions mentioned above are implemented by different ministries. Objectives & progress of each mission as per India’s Third Biennial Update Report to UNFCCC 2021:
#1 The National Solar Mission
The focus of this mission is to create a conducive environment for developing solar manufacturing capability in the country. Apart from it, the mission involves supporting research, development and capacity building activities.
In terms of targets - the aim is to achieve 100 GW of solar power by 2022 with 40 GW of grid-connected rooftop projects and 60 GW of large and medium land-based solar-power projects. Recently, the ministry also launched the national portal for Rooftop solar program.
Their key achievements includes:
- The cumulative capacity of 36.05 GW has been commissioned till September 2020 and the total capacity that is already commissioned or in the pipeline is about 91 GW.
- Currently, 0.256 million solar pumps have been set up till March 2020 (MNRE, 2020).
40 solar parks in 17 out of 29 States have been commissioned.
#2 The National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency
India has a major energy waste problem due to which Energy efficiency has huge potential of implementation. The Bureau of Energy Efficiency India had implemented the PAT scheme to trade energy-savings certificates, thereby incentivising for energy consumption reduction in large energy-consuming industries. In the three PAT cycles, total of 100 MtCO2 which is around 2.5% of India’s total emissions (just via energy efficiency!).
Apart from this there are several energy incentives, including reduced taxes on energy-efficient appliances.
#3 The National Mission on Sustainable Habitat
This mission includes preparation of city development plans that comprehensively address adaptation and mitigation concerns. Along with city development, it also includes mobility plans that enable cities to undertake long-term, energy-efficient, and cost-effective transport planning.
Various policies under the mission include:
- Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC): 335 demonstration buildings have been supported with technical assistance for compliance. Cumulative built up area of 0.16 billion m2 ensures an approximate energy saving of 0.17 billion units.
- Smart Cities Mission (SCM): 1,987 projects have been completed which requires cities to have at least 10% energy coming from solar and at least 80% buildings to be energy efficient and green. (MoHUA, 2020).
#4 The National Water Mission
Water is one of the most critically affected resources from effects of climate change.
The aim of this mission is to improve water use efficiency (aim towards 20% improvement), to create a comprehensive water database in the public domain and towards promoting basin-level integrated water resources management.
Centre has provided financial assistance of INR 5 million to major states and INR 3 million to small states/UTs as a grant for the formulation of State Specific Action Plans (SSAPs) for the water sector.
The National Institute of Hydrology is also acting as Nodal agency to get the State Specific Action Plan for the water sector for 16 out of 29 states (NWM, 2020). Five States have completed the first phase of SSAP.
#5 The National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem
The objective of this mission is to assist states in the Indian Himalayan region with their implementation of actions selected for sustainable development. And to promote regional cooperation with neighbouring countries in Glaciology.
Their key activities include:
- Climate Cells/Centres have been established in 11 out of the 12 Himalayan States for building the institutional capacity of Himalayan States in the area of climate change adaptation (MoST, 2018).
- Building a common Framework for Climate Vulnerability and Risk Assessment developed to understand the vulnerability profile of the entire Himalayan region (MoST, 2018), by DST in collaboration with SDC and scientists from IIScs & IITs.
#6 The National Mission for a “Green India”
The aim of this mission is to focus on increasing forest-based lands & livelihoods:
(i) Increase forest/tree cover by 5 million ha of forest/non-forest lands and improved quality of forest cover on another 5 million ha (a total of 10 million ha).
(ii) Improved ecosystem services including biodiversity, hydrological services and carbon sequestration as a result of treatment of 10 million ha.
(iii) To increase forest-based livelihood income of about 3 million households living in and around the forests.
The link includes the detailed targets set under this mission. Massive amounts of afforestation programs have been initiated and an amount of INR 894.20 million has been released between 2017 and 2019 (MoEFCC, 2019). This also adds directly towards India’s NDCs.
#7 The National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture
Apart from forestry, the major sector is Agriculture, since the Indian economy is still agriculture-led.
The aim of this mission is to make agriculture more productive, sustainable, remunerative, and climate resilient. This is done via incentivising adoption of comprehensive soil health management practices like System of Rice Intensification (SRI), Direct Seeded Rice (DSR) system. 23 million trees have been planted till 2018-19, covering an area of 52,003 ha (DAC&FW, 2020).
During 2018-19 & 2019-20 under the National Bamboo Mission, an area of 14,236 ha was covered along with other envisaged value chain development and skill development activities. 16,826 Custom Hiring Centres (CHCs) of in-situ crop residue management machinery have been established in 2018-19 and 2019-20 to reduce crop residue burning.
#8 The National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change
Given the extensive capacity building & R&D required for climate action, there is a separate mission focussed solely on strategic knowledge which focuses on development of national capacity for modelling the regional impact of climate change on different ecological zones within the country. This is aided via creating institutional capacity for research infrastructure.
Their progress includes:
- Launching 116 Training programmes and training 14,000 people. A total of 23 major R&D programmes have been spread over the country.
- Setting up 8 Global Technology Watch Groups in the areas of renewable energy technology, advanced coal technology, enhanced energy efficiency, green forest, sustainable habitat, water, sustainable agriculture and manufacturing.
So that’s it from our end on the India’s commitments & missions! Hope you understood a little around how the complex system works.