Fine-tune the Paris Pact framework, underline equity

Without credible commitments on climate finance by developed countries, calls for greater ambition from the Global South will ring hollow.

India’s updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the Paris Pact reflects the clarity that has been the hallmark of the country’s approach to climate negotiations. Announced against the backdrop of a global energy crisis, its 2031-2035 goals underline the government’s intent to balance the imperatives of a growing economy with the urgency of mitigating global warming. The new targets — raising renewable capacity by 10 per cent over the 2030 benchmark, reducing the emissions intensity of GDP by 47 per cent from the 2005 levels and increasing carbon sinks — are consistent with a policy framework that has emphasised realistic targets. This approach has placed India among a small group of countries that have demonstrated steady progress on their Paris commitments. It has achieved its green energy target for 2030 way  ahead of schedule.

Its record of early delivery has, however, invited criticism that, as the world’s third-highest GHG emitter, India has not displayed the ambition required to tackle a warming planet. The argument has acquired traction because aggregated NDCs still fall short of the Paris Pact’s most important goal: Limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. This critique is unfair. Not only does it underplay the persistent failure of developed countries to honour their pledges, it also doesn’t reckon with a structural flaw in the NDC framework. The voluntarism inherent in the Paris agreement has given countries the space to design commitments according to their capacities and developmental priorities. But it has also made the pact a patchwork of pledges based on different metrics. Countries such as China emphasise timelines for peaking emissions, while others, including India, commit to reductions in emissions intensity relative to GDP. The Paris Pact rested on the expectation that such divergences would be ironed out. That has not happened in the UNFCCC meetings since 2015.

What is needed now is not a retreat from the Paris architecture, but a phase of rigorous fine-tuning that does not compromise the principle of equity. Without credible commitments on climate finance by developed countries, calls for greater ambition from the Global South will ring hollow. On its part, India should continue to scale up deployment of clean technologies.