Is our actual emission figure correct ?

Soumik Dutta | NT

As per the recently released Climate Change Performance Index 2023 report, India secured 8th position in the index which is 2 positions up from the last edition.

Since no country was strong enough in all index categories to achieve an overall very high rating, the top three places are currently left vacant.

In the index, GHG Emissions for India are shown as high , with energy usage high, but renewable energy use as medium and climate policy in force as a medium.

The government has recently updated the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) submitted by India to UNFCCC under the Paris Agreement. These include targets to reduce the Emissions intensity of its GDP by 45 percent by 2030, from 2005 level. It plans to achieve about 50 per cent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030, with the help of transfer of technology and low-cost international finance including from Green Climate Fund (GCF), and create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.

The Paris Agreement is a global treaty wherein some 200 countries agreed to cooperate to reduce GHG emissions and rein in climate change. The agreement seeks to limit global warming to well below 2°C, preferably to 1.5°C, compared to pre-industry levels. During the COP26 summit, India endorsed its membership in the Global Methane Initiative (GMI).

India is among the top five methane emitters in the world but abstained from signing the global methane pledge and forest conservation declaration at Glasgow. Methane, though eighty-four times more potent than carbon dioxide in affecting global warming, has only 2% financial support on mitigation efforts globally.

The roles of agriculture, farm, and dairy sectors, plus dependence on forest produce have been ignored and not studied in India; they are some of the biggest contributors to methane emission.

A 2022 study report by a Brazil-based research group, has pointed to the fact that India’s GHG emissions could be actually higher by 40%, attributable to methane produced equivalent to 825 million tonnes of CO2 annually from the large hydropower projects (LHPs).

With 4500 plus mega dams in operation in India, and the government officially targeting installation of several more in the sensitive border state of Arunachal Pradesh, the actual quantum of methane emission is huge and not quantified.

Methane is the second leading cause of climate change after carbon dioxide, with the potential of methane to warm the environment being 84 times more than that of carbon dioxide.

The researchers from Queen Mary University of London, UK, also found that little is known about the effectiveness of the policies that exist, with potentially unrepresentative methane emission estimations used rather than actual measurements.

Researchers have shown through a review that only around 13 percent of global methane emissions are regulated, despite methane emissions causing at least 25 percent of current global warming. The researchers focused on 281 policies worldwide, 255 of them currently in force, which aim to monitor and reduce methane emissions examining the geographical coverage, strength, and effectiveness of the policies. 90 percent of identified national policies have been adopted in three regions: North America (39 percent), Europe (30 percent), and Asia Pacific (21 percent).

One of the main challenges to measuring methane emissions, the researchers said, is accurately identifying and quantifying sources. Developing and using technologies such as satellites to monitor methane emissions can help policymakers with measurement, verification, compliance, and detection of superemitters.

Introducing policies with greater policy coverage, mitigation solutions including for major sources, and measurable objectives could lead to a significant methane emissions reduction, they said.

Inaccurate estimations can also mean the issue is taken less seriously by decisionmakers by masking its severity, they said and argued that the lack of regulation and clarity into their impact must urgently be addressed if we were to meet our global climate targets.