India’s Role in the Fight Against Climate Change

ntries is required at several levels to overcome such a situation. In order to achieve this, country representatives and several world leaders at COP21 in Paris reached a milestone on 12 December 2015. This historic summit on climate change and its impact is known as the Paris Summit.

The Paris Summit

The Paris Agreement is a world treaty based on the effects of climate change. It was accepted by 196 countries in Paris at COP 21, which was conducted on the 12th of December 2015. This treaty was put into action on 4th November 2016. The treaty had its major goal set as capping global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, more optimally to 1.5 degrees Celsius, on par with the pre-industrial levels.

To achieve such a difficult and long goal, the nations have pledged to reach a global topping of greenhouse gas emissions with immediate effect to achieve neutrality halfway through the century.

The Paris Summit has been a beacon in the fight to solve the multiple climate change issues as it is an agreement that is the first of its kind. It is a landmark because it is the first legally binding agreement that has brought together all nations on a common issue. The nations have determined to make efforts to fight climate change and adapt themselves to the changes happening in the world.

The Paris Agreement was implemented to bring about economic and social changes within the nations on the basis of the highest quality of technology available to humankind. The agreement has a working cycle of 5 years, with incrementally determined climate change action being taken up by several nations.

By the year 2020, nations had put forth their ideas and approaches towards climate change as required by the agreement, and these came to be known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

Long-term Goals of the Summit

The summit sets long-term goals to guide all nations:

Finance

The Paris Summit reassured that developed countries will have to take the front seat regarding financial support for less endowed and highly vulnerable nations and, for the first time, motivated independent endowments from other parties.

Climate Finance is required to keep a check on the budget spent by each country on large-scale investments and on noticeable reduction in emissions. Climate Finance is equally significant for adjusting to the unpleasant effects and decreasing the unpleasant influence of changing climatic conditions.

Technology

The Paris Agreement talked about the perception of fully realizing technology development and transfer for improving adaptability to climate change and reducing GHG emissions. It lays down a technology framework to provide an all-encompassing guidance on technology development. 

Capacity-Building

Many developing nations do not possess enough capacity to manage the several challenges put forth by climate change. This has resulted in the Paris Agreement putting major emphasis on climate-related capacity-building for developing nations. The agreement made a request to all developed countries to increase help for capacity-building functions in developing nations.

India’s Role in Climate Change

According to the Indian Constitution, climate measures are the directives of the states and union territories. Since the states have specific issues to meet the challenges of climate change, a process for the preparation of State Action Plans on Climate Change (SAPCC) was initiated by about 29 states on the basis of the directives of the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). They have also been provided with new national targets based on climate change given by INDC. The SAPCCs will have to adapt to act upon these new challenges.

Optimization of resources will play a big part in the improvement of mitigation and alterations. As it transitions from the application phase to approaching the targets, knotted-up funds have to be loosened in the budget. India requires to strongly implement Climate Technology Center and Network (CTCN) for it to have a better capacity, which would, in turn, support India’s Climate action plans significantly for the future.

Challenges Faced by India

As per the most recent BP Energy Outlook, India’s requirement for green energy has been on the path to growing by at least seven times by the year 2035. This means that the percentage of renewable energy in the nation’s fuel mix is said to be on the rise from 2% to 8% by the year 2035.

Fossil fuel will continue to have a massive role in India’s energy mix for the upcoming decades. The emission intensity (CO2 emission per unit of GD) has seen a decline of about 18% compared to the year 1990 to 2005. The nation is also keen in reducing the emission level by another 20%-25% by the year 2020 compared to 2005.

In the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (IDNC), India has pledged to reduce emission intensity by another 33% to 35% by the year 2030. The country’s emission intensity target, however, does not give us an image of its scale of mitigation, which can be calculated from its planned investments in sustainability.

For India, a country that has an enormous coastline, the applications are going to be huge. The Union Environment Minister gave a statement in December 2016 that India would initialize implementing the Paris Agreement from the year 2017.

However, no considerable changes towards the endorsement of climate change can be seen in the Union budget 2017-18. Nevertheless, the ministry seems to be positive towards sanctioning an expenditure of a huge amount for implementing the Paris Agreement that came into action form the year 2020.

Conclusion

To combat a collective issue plaguing the planet like climate change, it is imperative that countries join hands in a combined effort. The Paris Summit was the first step towards achieving this collective goal and to bringing together all countries irrespective of their differences. It is a bid to reduce the alienation that exists between countries when trying to solve global issues.

For India, a country with an enormous coastline, the challenges and expenses involved in implementing climate change reforms is huge. The ministry however has shown a positive attitude towards implementing the Paris Agreement that came into force from 2020.

India being a rapidly developing country has a big role to play in combating the various issues that the world is facing. Even with climate change, proper planning is required across the different states and union territories to ensure that India does its part in reducing the adverse effect of climate change.