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| India has promised to cut carbon intensity but not an absolute reduction in emissions. (Reuters: Arko Datta) |
India has promised to cut its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 33 to 35 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030. In its statement to the UN, New Delhi also said it aimed to source 40 per cent of its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by the same year, though it said it would require UN financial support to do so.
"It is a huge jump for India, therefore it is a very ambitious target," environment minister Prakash Javadekar said, after the government submitted to plan to the UN.
India is the world's third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide and its pledges made it the last major economy to announce its climate target ahead of a key global change summit in Paris this December.
All countries had agreed to submit their planned targets by Thursday October 1.
However, India is not yet prepared to go as far as China — the world's largest emitter — which pledged in June to reduce its carbon intensity by 60 to 65 per cent by 2030, partly through the use of carbon emissions trading.
Beijing also said it would bring its absolute emissions to a peak by "around 2030."
Earlier this week, Brazil became the first major developing economy to announce an absolute cut in greenhouse gas emissions.
It pledged to reduce emissions by 37 per cent below 2005 levels by 2025, and by 43 per cent by 2030.
India, by comparison, made the pledge to cut emissions 'intensity', the ratio of a country's carbon emissions to its economic output.
As well as not setting absolute emissions cuts, India did not give a commitment to establishing carbon emissions trading.
New Delhi said coal would continue to dominate power generation for its population of more than one billion people into the future, though it stressed its commitment to clean energy technologies.
"We are much too dependent on fossil fuels now," Mr Javadekar said.
It planned to develop 25 solar parks, supply 100,000 solar pumps to farmers, and convert all 55,000 petrol pumps across the country to solar.
It also promised to "aggressively" develop hydro and nuclear energy.
Pledges a 'sign of progress' but countries not going far enough
Experts said the pledges mark progress in climate action but — even if fully implemented — would not be enough to prevent the planet from warming by more than 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, compared to pre-industrial times.
Christiana Figueres, the UN's climate chief, hailed the wide participation as a sign that Paris could be a "turning point" towards 2C, the level accepted by governments as the threshold beyond which the Earth would face dangerous changes including more droughts, extinctions, floods and rising seas.
She said this offered opportunities for investments in "resilient, low-emission, sustainable development".
"Despite huge developmental challenges, India has put forward a climate action plan that is far superior to ones proposed by the US and EU," Sandeep Chachra, ActionAid India's executive director, said.
"The ambitious focus on energy efficiency and dramatic increase in renewable energy deserves credit but must lead to enhanced energy access for the poor."
India's plans were "fair and ambitious considering the fact that [it] is attempting to work towards a low carbon emissions pathway while endeavouring to meet all the developmental challenges the country faces today," its statement said.
"India's climate actions have so far been largely financed from domestic resources. A substantial scaling up of the climate action plans would require greater resources.
"A preliminary estimate suggests that at least $US2.5 trillion ... will be required for meeting India's climate change actions between now and 2030."
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi met US president Barack Obama and the leaders of France and Britain last month to call for a climate change agenda that helps developing countries with access to finance and technology.
Reuters
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