The Copenhagen Challenge: Prospects for Successful Climate Negotiations [ PDF ]

In this Newsletter:

India: Poverty Eradication for Climate Adaptation

Sam Sherer, Senior Fellow

As the second most populous country in the world, the fourth largest total greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter (not counting the EU as one entity) and a long-time influential trendsetter for developing countries, India’s position will be an important indicator for the success of Copenhagen and subsequent climate change negotiations. Dr. R. K. Pachauri, an Indian, chairs the IPCC, and Indian intellectuals have played a major role in assessing climate science and proposing adaptation and mitigation measures.

In 2005, total GHG emissions for India were 1,853 million metric tons equivalent of carbon dioxide (Mt CO2) [i], only 4.9% of the world total of 37,767 MtCO2. However, India is representative of many developing countries in that its present per capita level of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, at 1.54 metric tons, is far below per capita levels in the U.S. (22.8) and China (5.35).

However, the percentage composition of GHG emissions for India are quite different than the composition for China, the U.S. and the world as a whole (see graph) [ii]. Though the percentages of the total that are carbon dioxide (CO2) or nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions for India are below those for the U.S., China, and the world, the percentage attributable to methane (CH4) is much higher due to the predominance of rice and dairy, and the sacred status of cattle. As noted in the Moore and MacCracken Lifetime Leveraging paper (2009), the composition of GHG emissions is an important part of any climate negotiation.
India also represents the tension between the resource needs for development and the vulnerability to the likely effects of climate change. This tension is outlined in the National Action Plan on Climate Change prepared by the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change [iii] and publicly announced in a speech by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on June 30, 2008 [iv].

On the one hand, India is in the midst of a long-term program focusing on rapid economic growth as an essential precondition to poverty eradication and improved standards of living. The economic reforms implemented since 1991 have led to GDP growth rates of roughly 8% annually over the period 2004-2008. Substantial economic growth is expected to continue: the Economist projects a growth rate of 5.5% for 2009 and 6.4% for 2010 [v], a rate exceeded only by China, projected to grow at 6.5% for 2009 and 7.3% for 2010 [vi]. The U.S. and the rest of the developed world is expected to have negative growth rates for 2009 and growth rates under 1% for 2010. However, as noted in the National Action Plan, this progress for India is relative. In 2004/2005, 27.5% of the population still lived below the poverty line and 44% of the population lacked access to electricity. Since the poor (especially women) are most susceptible to climate change, economic development and poverty eradication will be the best forms of adaptation to climate change.

On the other hand, India has great vulnerability to the likely results of climate change. Melting Himalayan glaciers may flood the North Indian Plain, the breadbasket and center of Hindu culture. Changes in the summer monsoon’s pattern and intensity could cause widespread drought. Rising sea levels will threaten India’s 6,500 km. of coastline, home to nearly half of India’s population. Deforestation in one of the largest remaining forests of the world will hinder people traditionally dependent on forest resources for their livelihood.
Further, the speech by Prime Minister Singh and the National Action Plan note that India’s culture emphasizes quality of life and not material things. Singh stated that India has a civilizational legacy which treats nature as a source of nurture and not as a dark force to be conquered and harnessed to human endeavor. The speech concludes with Mahatma Gandhi’s message that the earth has enough resources to meet people’s needs, but will never have enough to serve their greed. This spirit must underlie any strategy for sustainable development in India.

The National Action Plan reflects these messages. It prescribes eight National Missions to combat climate change: solar energy, enhanced energy efficiency, sustainable habitat, water, preserving the Himalayan Ecosystem, Green India (forestry), sustainable agriculture, and a final mission on strategic climate knowledge. In each of these areas, India has already developed policies, modern legislation, and mitigation strategies to reduce GHG emissions.

India officially outlined an international negotiation strategy in The Road to Copenhagen: India’s Position on Climate Change Issues, dated February 27, 2009. India, in line with its G-77+China partners, awaits actions by the developed world and especially the U.S., to which it will react. The Indian government advocates a fair and equitable outcome based upon the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities as set forth in the 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It needs an outcome that allows for accelerated social and economic development in order to eradicate widespread poverty, but which also creates a global regime supportive of ecologically sustainable development.

India wishes to continue with the Bali Action Plan from the 13th Meeting held in December 2007 which called for cooperation in climate change mitigation and adaptation, supported by sufficient financial resources and technology transfers from developed to developing countries. In general, India supports a global package that would commit developed countries to significant reductions in their GHG emissions, achieve wide dissemination at affordable costs of existing climate-friendly technologies and practices, and establish a collaborative R&D effort among developed and major developing countries for cost-effective technological innovations for a carbon-free economy.

With regard to mitigation, India notes that the UNFCCC and the subsequent December 1997 Kyoto Protocol do not require developing countries to commit any GHG emissions reductions. However, in his speech announcing the National Action Plan, Prime Minister Singh stated that India’s per capita GHG emissions will not exceed the average per capita emissions of developed countries as India pursues its social and economic development objectives. Given India’s current relatively low per capita GHG emissions, the standard gives India enormous leeway to increase emissions with development, but caps India’s emissions to any reduced average level achieved by the developed world. Existing programs in energy-efficiency, afforestation and other areas will help to limit India’s increase in GHG emissions as it develops.

There may be possibilities to negotiate reductions of the short-lived GHGs produced by black carbon (soot) in India (a major coal user) if substantial reductions of long-lived GHG emission are made by the developed world [vii]. However, it is unlikely that India would enter into such discussion until the number one black carbon emitter, China, agreed to a basic framework with the United States.

The Position Paper further states that India requires global action on adaptation. India already spends over 2% of its GDP to combat a high degree of climate variability resulting from droughts, floods and other extreme weather events. Under climate change such events would likely increase significantly.

According to India, financing for emissions reductions, such as a carbon cap and trade system or Climate Investment Funds under the World Bank, should be seen as supplemental to the multilateral financing mechanism of grants for adaptation and mitigation put forth under the UNFCCC, such as the existing Adaptation Fund. Such financing must also be supplemental to, not part of, general aid.

The Position Paper also notes that India made domestic commitments to its own population under the National Action Plan with its own resources, but does not wish to legally bind itself internationally to similar goals. In an interview in The Economist on June 6, 2009, Shyam Saran, Special Envoy for the Prime Minister for Climate Change, reiterated that India will not make any agreement at the expense of its development. Rather, action on climate change must enhance, not diminish prospects for development; action must be collaborative and not sharpen the division between an affluent North and an impoverished South, but give all members of the global community an equal entitlement to development and the fruits of prosperity.

The Road to Copenhagen paper was written several months before the May 2009 parliamentary election in which the ruling Congress Party and its allies won 261 of 543 seats, an increase of 38 seats from the 2004 election. This increased majority will allow the government more freedom of action but this change may not mean much in the approach to Copenhagen. As indicated above, India puts the burden upon the U.S. and other developed countries to reduce their per capita GHG emissions significantly before India acts to make any such reductions.

SUMMER 2009 Climate Alert

The Copenhagen Challenge: Prospects for Successful Climate Negotiations [ PDF ]

In this Newsletter:

Other Articles in this Newsletter: