AIR Spotlight: India's Long Term Low Emission Development Strategy at Cop-27

AIR Spotlight is an insightful program featured daily on the All India Radio Newsonair. In this program, many eminent panellists discuss issues of importance which can be quite helpful in IAS exam preparation.

This article is about the discussion on “India’s Long Term Low Emission Development Strategy at Cop-27”.

Participants:

1. Ashish Chaturvedi, Head of Environment, Energy and Resilience, UNDP India.
2. Sonu Sood, AIR Correspondent.

Context: India submitted its Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategy to the UNFCCC recently.

Introduction: 

• India submitted its Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategy to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), during the 27th Conference of Parties (COP27). 
• The Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategy was launched by the Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, who is leading the Indian delegation to COP 27 in Egypt. 

Long-Term Low Emissions Development Strategy:

• The 2015 Paris Agreement requires all parties to create long-term low greenhouse gas emissions development strategies (LT-LEDS) based on their various responsibilities and capabilities as per the different national-level circumstances.
• The COP26, held in Glasgow in November 2021, required the parties who have not yet communicated their LT-LEDS to submit them by COP27. 
• India’s LT-LEDS was prepared after extensive consultations with various government entities, state governments, research institutes and civil society organisations.
• India’s approach is based on the following four key considerations that underpin its long-term low-carbon development strategy:

1. India has contributed little to global warming, its historical contribution to cumulative global GHG emissions being minuscule despite having a share of ~17% of the world’s population.
   1. India has contributed only around 4% of the global cumulative greenhouse gas emissions between 1850 and 2019.
2. India has significant energy needs for development.
3. India is committed to pursuing low-carbon strategies for development and is actively pursuing them, as per national circumstances.
4. India needs to build climate resilience.

Salient features of India’s Long Term Low Emission Development Strategy:

1. Judicious use of national resources with due regard to energy security. The phase-out of fossil fuels will be done in a fair, easy, sustainable, and inclusive way.
2. Enhanced use of biofuels, especially ethanol blending in petrol, the effort to enhance the penetration of electric vehicles, and the increased use of green hydrogen fuel are expected to drive the low-carbon development of the transport sector. 
   1. India aspires to maximise the use of electric vehicles, ethanol blending to reach 20% by 2025, and a strong modal shift to public transport for passengers and freight.
3. Sustainable and climate-resilient urban development driven by smart city initiatives, integrated planning of cities, enhanced energy and resource efficiency, effective green building codes and innovative solid and liquid waste management.
4. Low carbon development transitions in the industrial sector to improve energy security, energy access and employment. 
   1. The focus will be on improving energy efficiency through the Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT) scheme, National Hydrogen Mission, and high level of electrification in all relevant processes and activities among other initiatives.
5. India has a strong record of enhancing forest and tree cover in the last 30 years alongside high economic growth. India’s forest fire incidence is well below global levels, while its forest and tree cover were a net sink absorbing 15% of CO2 emissions in 2016. India is on track to fulfilling its NDC commitment of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of additional carbon sequestration in forest and tree cover by 2030.
6. The transition to a low-carbon development pathway will entail several costs pertaining to the development of new technologies, new infrastructure, and other transaction costs. Climate finance by developed countries will play a very crucial role and needs to be enhanced, in the form of grants and concessional loans in accordance with the principles of the UNFCCC.     

India’s Progress in Renewable Energy Sector:

• With a population of 1.3 billion, India has a massive demand for energy to fuel its rapidly growing economy. 
• Today, India is a power surplus nation with a total installed electricity capacity of over four lakh MW.
• Today, India is the world’s third largest producer of renewable energy, with 40% of its installed electricity capacity coming from non-fossil fuel sources. 
  • At COP 21, as part of its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), India had committed to achieving 40% of its installed electricity capacity from non-fossil energy sources by 2030. The country has achieved this target in November 2021 itself.

Image source: PIB

• India’s wind power potential at a hub height of 120 metres is 695 GW. The wind power installed capacity has grown 1.9 times during the past 7.5 years to about 40 GW and 9.67 GW of projects are at various stages of commissioning. India has the 4th largest wind power capacity in the world.
  • The government of India has notified the Offshore Wind Energy Policy to harness the potential of offshore wind energy along India’s coastline. 
• The National Hydrogen Mission was launched in 2021 with the objective to make India a global hub for Green Hydrogen production and export. 
• India’s renewable energy programme is driven by private sector investment. As per the REN21 Renewables 2020 Global Status Report, during the period 2014 -2019 renewable energy programmes and projects in India attracted an investment of US$ 64.4 billion.
• The Indian ‘Non-Conventional Energy’ sector received approximately US$ 7.27 billion as FDI from the year 2014-15 up to June 2021. Of this, an FDI of US$ 797.21 million was attracted during 2020-21.

Economic and Financial Aspects of Low-Carbon Development:

• A transition to a low-carbon development will entail costs, pertaining to the deployment of new technologies, development of new infrastructure, and other transaction costs. 
• Meeting finance needs require mobilising and scaling up financial resources internationally as well as mobilising domestic finance. 
  • International sources include multilateral and bilateral sources, dedicated climate funds, international institutional investors, and the private sector. 
• Developed countries should meet their commitments to climate finance, especially their commitment of USD 100 billion per year by 2020, while also enhancing their commitments under the New Collective Quantified Goals to enable the achievement of climate goals as mandated under the Paris Agreement. 
• Ambition in climate action in developing countries requires ambition in climate finance under the Paris Agreement. 
• Private finance can be channelled through equity investments, debt including loans and bonds, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), risk mitigation instruments such as insurance and guarantees, and innovative forms of finance. 

‘Loss and Damage’ policy debate:

• The ongoing climate change conference, COP27, included the issue of ‘loss and damage’ in its formal main agenda for the first time ever.
• Loss and damage refer to the negative consequences of climate change on human societies and the natural environment. 
• Climate change is affecting the frequency, intensity and geographical distribution of extreme weather events such as storms, floods and heatwaves, and slow-onset events such as sea level rise, ocean acidification, loss of biodiversity and desertification. All of these result in loss and damage, both economic and non-economic. 
• The Loss and Damage debate has been contentious within the international climate negotiations because of questions of fairness and equity, and proving historical responsibility for climate change. 
• Developing countries claim that developed countries have a historical responsibility for climate change. As such, they have called for compensation from developed countries to help them address loss and damage that have already occurred and to minimise future loss and damage which is refused and resisted by the developing countries.
• In focusing on minimising future harm, developed countries have sought to treat Loss and Damage as a sub-component of adaptation within the UNFCCC negotiations. This is addressed through the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (WIM), established at the COP19 UN climate conference in 2013. 
• Apart from efforts at COP27, a group of states is planning to bring a draft resolution in the UN General Assembly in December 2022, requesting an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on climate change.

India’s leadership role in COP 27:

• Developing countries, including India, are pushing rich countries to agree to a new global climate finance target—also known as the new collective quantified goal on climate finance (NCQG).
• India emphasised at the ongoing COP 27 that rich countries must take the lead in mobilising resources and that developing countries need a significant increase in climate funding starting at a floor of $100 billion annually to accomplish their ambitious goals.
  • At COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, developed countries had committed to jointly mobilise $100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing countries tackle the effects of climate change. 
• India also emphasised the need for rich nations to provide financial, technological, and capacity-building support for climate efforts to reach the NDC commitments.
• India also sought clarification on the concept of climate finance, the lack of which enables wealthy nations to misrepresent their loans as climate-related help and greenwash their financial standing.

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