IPCC report and India’s opportunity to lead the world on climate change

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“A code red for humanity” was how UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres described the recently published report by the Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Complied by over 200 scientists, the assessment carries significant weight as 195 countries have approved it.

The report findings should concern us all. Our planet’s global surface temperature has already risen by 1.1°C from what it was between 1850 and 1900. It is the hottest our Earth has ever been in almost 125,000 years. If we continue with our current emissions, there could even be an increase of 4.4°C by the end of the century. Even with a significant reduction in emissions, the limit set by the nations that signed the 2015 Paris agreement of 1.5 °C to 2 °C is set to be breached within the next twenty years.

The consequences of this steady rise in temperature are already visible. Extreme weather changes and conditions have become normal. The catastrophic floods that wreaked havoc in Germany and China, and the lethal heat wave that scorched Western parts of North America and Canada, earlier this year, have all been linked to climate change.

Ice caps, sheets and glaciers from the Arctic to the Himalayas are melting at an alarming rate. Rising sea levels are causing significant coastal erosion across the globe. A NASA tool getting inputs from IPCC projects that 12 Indian cities including Cochin, Chennai, Mumbai and Visakhapatnam will submerge between 0.49 and 2.7 feet by the end of this century.

The three regions of Latin America, sub-saharan Africa,

and Southeast Asia are estimated to generate 143 million more climate migrants by 2050. Immigration policies that are already contentious would get even more challenging.

Despite the grim trajectory, “with emissions cut to net zero and removed from the atmosphere, we would see warming later fall back to 1.4°C by 2100”, according to Ed Hawkings, one of the authors on the IPCC report.

The UN Climate Change Conference, COP26 would be held in November at Glasgow, Scotland with the IPCC assessments as a backdrop. Undoubtedly, Indian voice would be consequential during this event, as we are the only G20 country on course to meet the Paris agreement climate goals. India’s annual renewable energy additions have exceeded coal-based additions since 2017, and have swiftly reached the fourth spot in global renewable energy installations at 100 GW. We could even breach the 450 GW target we have set for 2030.

India’s greenhouse emissions are escalating annually, and we are currently the third largest emitter. Our per capita emissions are however just 1/7th of the US, almost 1/4th of China, and 1/3rd of the EU. The developed world concentrated in the global north, also have had a huge head start in industrialization and development. India’s cumulative emissions from 1850 onwards of 5%, pales in comparison to a combined figure of over 50%, by the US and the EU.

The road to “zero emissions in 2050”, a requisite for reversing the temperature gains is arduously long, and would only get more challenging, as our energy needs would greatly increase with time.

All countries, especially those from the global north, firstly need to be persuaded to take more active steps in meeting their Paris agreement targets. They would have to waive, or transfer the patents of some of their clean technologies at the lowest possible price to the developing and underdeveloped world. They would also have to assist them in creating avenues of funding for these renewable energy installations.

This proposition might initially sound too altruistic. However, it should be kept in mind that climate change challenges would only be tackled through unreserved global participation, including from the middle and lower income countries. Most of them, concentrated in the global south, are grappling with severe economic as well as developmental challenges. Their wholehearted commitment towards these ambitious targets planned over the next three decades would not be possible if the frameworks created are designed to perpetuate existing global inequalities, or if they fail to acknowledge the historic contributions of various nations that have led to this predicament.

India with our increasing economic clout, and with our ascending track record in going green, has a unique historic opportunity to take the lead in the formation of an all inclusive, global policy and regulatory framework that could reverse the currently precarious trajectory of climate change, and thus design a sustainable planetary future.

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