India Needs To Delink Emissions From Economic Growth To Meet Climate Pledge
To meet pledge of reducing carbon intensity by 45%, India needs lower emissions for each unit of GDP growth than seen in the past.
Every unit of gross domestic product gained by India will have to be far less polluting than in the past if the country is to meet its climate pledge by 2030.
While that may sound obvious, it highlights the need for India to decouple emissions and GDP growth at a greater pace and nearly halve the economy's carbon intensity by the end of the decade. Emission intensity is the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions released to the gross domestic product.
To illustrate this point, CPR India fellows Aman Srivastava and Ashwini K Swain plotted a relationship between average emissions and GDP growth, one that is compatible with India's pledge.
The analysis, which was published on Ideas for India, shows an envelope of emissions-to-economic growth in 2030 that India will need to sit below to achieve its pledge. "By contrast, recent averages of this relationship have been consistently above this envelope," they wrote.
For instance, between 2010 and 2016, India's emissions grew at an annualised rate of 5.1%, while its GDP grew 6.8% in the same period. If India continues a similar growth trajectory of 6.5%, between 2020 and 2030, then to meet its climate pledge, emissions will only have room to grow a maximum of 3.1% annually between 2016 and 2030.
"Since emissions will have less space to grow proportional to GDP than in previous years, this will require a greater decoupling of emissions from growth than has been achieved in the past."
That said, when adjusted for GDP, the trajectory of India's historical emissions have been in line, or sometimes lower than those of other countries in the G7 BRICS and South Asia, the authors wrote.
"This indicates that, despite its (India) low historical responsibility, it has been taking climate actions that are comparable, within the context of its growth objectives, and that its updated pledge would start from a relatively low base."
They also noted that the pledge to reduce carbon intensity by 45%, which was made in Glasgow, Scotland by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is largely consistent with India's current climate policies. This signals that India does intend to "substantially" decouple emissions and growth, they wrote.