Tackling climate change: Gaps in intent and action must be bridged

Shift to Green

This week the world is observing thirty years of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development – popularly known as the ‘Earth Summit’ – held in Rio de Janeiro and also fifty years of the first Human Environment Conference held in Stockholm. The two landmark meetings brought into focus the interdependence of social, environmental and economic factors and catalysed environmental policies and actions globally. The Earth Summit presented a broad agenda and a blueprint for international action on the environment. This process, over the years, manifested in various treaties and mechanisms, like the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and carbon trading. The periodically released scientific reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have served as guidance to policymakers and negotiators. While all this happened, the impacts of climate change have become more apparent in the form of extreme weather events, drastic changes in weather patterns and impacts on livelihoods.

At the national level, several policy changes and programmes were initiated to fulfil India’s international obligations. In 2008, the UPA government came up with the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) consisting of missions on solar energy, energy efficiency, water, agriculture, Himalayan ecosystem, sustainable habitat, green India, and strategic knowledge on climate change. The activities in missions for solar energy, energy efficiency and the forestry sector are supposed to contribute directly to the reduction in carbon emissions, while other missions are to support carbon emissions reduction as a co-benefit. As a follow-up, the states were told to formulate their respective action plans outlining sector-specific and cross-sectoral actions.

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By the time the NDA came to power in 2014, all major states had prepared state action plans. However, many state plans got outdated by the time they were formulated and no major action has been initiated barring a few adaptation projects. The state science and technology councils, which are supposed to be nodal agencies for climate action, are not adequately prepared to handle the task. Given that climate action, by its very nature, is inter-sectoral, the state councils often do not get the necessary cooperation from other departments.

To support adaptation programmes in states under the National Adaptation Fund for Climate Change, funds are released for specific projects through the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). This quantum has come down from Rs 118 crore in 2015-16 to Rs 42 crore in 2020-21, according to information provided by the government in the last parliament session. The funds released for 2021-22 (till the last week of March 2022) were only Rs 27 crore. In addition to supporting states in adaptation projects, the central government funds some activities on its own. The money spent by the central government on the climate change action programme has come down from Rs 26 crore in 2017-18 to Rs 20 crore in 2020-21. Both the funds released to the states for climate-specific projects and funds spent by the central government for climate change related activities have shown a downward trend in the last seven years.

One of the five commitments Prime Minister Narendra Modi made at the Glasgow meeting of UNFCCC in November 2021 was that India would install 500 GW of non-fossil energy capacity by 2030. Solar energy was one of the eight missions announced in 2008 and the progress being made under this mission in recent years has been rapid, but it appears to be a case of shifting goalposts. In July 2018, the government informed parliament that it had set a target of installing 100 GW of solar capacity by 2022 in the country. Overall, the target for renewable energy capacity was 175 GW 2022 – 100 GW from solar, 60 GW from wind, 10 GW from bio-power and 5 GW from small hydro-power. In November 2021, the government claimed that the target had been met with installed renewable energy capacity at 150 GW (48.55 GW solar, 40 GW wind, 4.83 GW small hydro, 10.62 GW bio-power, 46.51 GW large hydro). There is a huge gap of 25 GW in installed renewable capacity and over 50 GW gap in solar capacity – between the projection made in 2018 and the reality in 2022. The solar capacity also includes grid-connected rooftop solar panels set up by people on their own. The states were told in 2014 to make the installation of rooftop solar panels mandatory in building bye-laws.

The other commitments the prime minister made in Glasgow included a reduction in the emissions intensity of GDP by 45% over 2005 levels, achieving the target of installing capacity for generating 50% of electricity from non-fossil sources by 2030 (which is related to 500 GW capacity of renewables), reduction in carbon emissions by one billion tonnes till 2030 and becoming net-zero by 2070. All these promises are linked to each other and need cohesive action and plans to translate intent into action. If the promise of 500 GW made by India to the world community is to be met, the country will have to add 350 GW of renewable energy capacity in the next eight years. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has not yet come up with a blueprint to achieve this target although the announcement was made in November 2021. Similarly, some initiatives, like National Hydrogen Mission and National Electric Mobility Mission Plan, have been initiated, but it is not clear how much they will contribute to emission reduction. The government also needs to work with all stakeholders including civil society and states. More concrete steps are needed to bridge the gap between intent and action.

(Dinesh C Sharma is a journalist and author based in New Delhi. His latest book is Indian Innovation: 100 ideas that transformed India)