India ahead of deadline to submit national goals for tracking global warming

India is in the process of submitting its nationally determined contribution (NDC), senior officials of the union environment ministry said on Wednesday, with the process being completed well before a September 23 deadline of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for NDCs to be analysed for a report to be published by the UNFCCC secretariat later this year, officials added.

The NDC synthesis report measures the impact of NDCs submitted to understand the current emissions trajectory and assess whether the world is on track to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2 degree C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5 degree C.

The previous synthesis report released on September 17 last year found, based on NDCs submitted until last year, that greenhouse gas emissions for 2030 would be 59.3% higher than in 1990, 46.2% higher than in 2000, 28.1% higher than in 2005, 16.3% higher than in 2010, 8.2% higher than in 2015 and 5.0% higher than 2019. The total GHG emission level resulting from implementation of the unconditional elements of the NDCs is projected to be 7.8% higher in 2030 than in 2019. But as per the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s findings, CO2 emissions need to decline by about 45% from the 2010 levels by 2030 reaching net zero around 2050 in order to keep global warming under 1.5°C warming level. So, the NDC synthesis report showed countries were not doing enough to meet the Paris Agreement goal.

“Our NDC will reach UNFCCC much before the September 23 deadline. We are already in the process of sending our NDC. UNFCCC will upload it thereafter. We wanted to ensure that India is considered for the UNFCCC NDC synthesis report,” said a senior official of the climate division of MoEFCC. After submission of NDC, in a few days UNFCCC is likely to make it public on their website.

For now, the NDC will include only bullet points of India’s goals , including two major ones — to reduce emissions intensity of its GDP by 45% from 2005 levels and achieve about 50% of its cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources, both by 2030. The third new goal included in the NDC is to put forward and propagate a healthy and sustainable way of living based on traditions and values of conservation and moderation through a mass movement for ‘LIFE’– ‘Lifestyle for Environment’ as a key to combating climate change.”

The union environment ministry, in FAQs on the updated NDC released earlier this month stated that the target on achieving 50% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based sources will be taken up with the help of transfer of technology and low-cost international finance including from the Green Climate Fund. The updated NDC does not mention India’s long-term goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2070. Officials have said they will also submit a long-term strategy (LTS) document in coming months that will articulate India’s net zero by 2070 goal. “The detailed NDCs will be updated in 2025 when countries revise their NDCs again. For now, we will be submitting points only but these will be analysed in the NDC synthesis report which is important,” added the senior official cited above.

A new collective, quantified finance goal will be one of the big issues at the UN climate conference (COP 27) at Egypt’s Sharm El Sheikh in November, the official said. “India is doing all that it can and more as a developing country. As you know we have a carbon budget of only 500 gigatons for a 50% chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degree C. Most of the carbon budget has been exhausted by developed nations like US. Now at Sharm El Sheikh we will demand delivery of climate finance particularly the promised $ 100 billion a year. There will be discussions on the new collective, quantified finance goal also. It’s about time. We will also demand that developed countries focus on carbon negative technologies like carbon capture and share the technologies with developing nations.”

India has not made its NDC conditional. “It’s not like India will not deliver on its climate commitments if there is no finance support. It will use its domestic resources as we have in the past but the matter of climate finance and accountability will have to be addressed,” he explained.

Responding to India’s new NDC, Deepthi Swamy, lead, climate program at World Resources Institute said “Our analysis suggests that based on continued declining costs of electricity generation from renewables, it is possible to meet a share of 58% of non-fossil installed electricity capacity (including solar, wind, biomass, hydro and nuclear) by 2030, provided there is adequate grid support and addressal of implementation bottlenecks at the regional level. This is comparable to Central Electricity Authority’s projection 63% share of non-fossil installed power capacity by 2030.”