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Climate agreements and India: aligning options and opportunities on a new track

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Abstract

The Climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December 2009 witnessed the emerging power of Brazil, South Africa, India, and China (BASIC). Although still focussed on domestic development goals, BASIC countries have made important steps toward a greater engagement in the global climate agenda. For India, the shift was marked by a voluntary, but conditional, target of reducing emission intensity, away from the past normative position based on “equal per capita,” emissions entitlements. The new track aims at finding cost-effective mitigation strategies that align national development goals and climate actions. This paper examines the mitigation potential of a domestic sustainable development policy using a suite of integrated assessment models. The long-term goal is to keep temperature increase below 2°C. This article shows that it is possible to match domestic development goals and climate mitigation. Win–win options exist and side benefits—in terms of energy security and local pollution—are important. However, development policies are not sufficient to achieve the desired emissions reductions. We find that it is necessary to introduce a constraint on the carbon budget. The price of carbon that emerges is however much lower than in a conventional mitigation scenario. Finally, this paper proposes to shift the negotiations away from the current climate-centric focus toward “development,” in order to reduce conflicts and deliver greater global and national benefits.

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Notes

  1. The commitments of developing countries are contained in the Appendix II of the Copenhagen Accord—Nationally appropriate mitigation actions of developing country Parties.

  2. From the New York Times online edition, “Climate Goal Is Supported by China and India” by John M. Broder, published March 9, 2010.

  3. Emissions per capita of India are very low. In 2008, they were only one-tenth of those in the United States, but also only one-fourth of Chinese emissions per capita. Massetti (this issue) shows how the gap between India and China might remain wide for decades.

  4. Note that little progress has been made so far on rights over the global commons and that negotiations on forest (and related biodiversity) have reinforced national sovereignty over natural resources.

  5. Similarly, Carraro and Massetti (2011) propose to shift the focus of post-Copenhagen climate negotiations away from what “should” be done to what “can” be done.

  6. For an analysis of the 2009 G8 target see Massetti (this issue).

  7. The National Action Plan on Climate Change is available at website of Prime Minister of India. Retrieved on 20 April 2010 http://pmindia.nic.in/Pg01-52.pdf.

  8. National Solar Mission has a target of having 20,000 MW grid connected solar power by 2022 Retrieved on 20 April 2010 http://mnre.gov.in/pdf/mission-document-JNNSM.pdf.

  9. Massetti (this issue) studies lower carbon tax trajectories. GDP losses are lower than what we find in this study, but still not politically acceptable in India.

Abbreviations

BASIC:

Brazil, South Africa, India and China

BAU:

Business-as-Usual

CCS:

Carbon Capture and Storage

CDM:

Clean Development Mechanism

COP:

Conference of Parties

GDP:

Gross Domestic Product

GoI:

Government of India

NAPCC:

India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change

R&D:

Research and Development

UNFCCC:

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad, 380015, India

    P. R. Shukla

  2. System Analysis Division, UNEP Risoe Centre, Risoe DTU, Roskilde, Denmark

    Subash Dhar

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  1. P. R. Shukla
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Shukla, P.R., Dhar, S. Climate agreements and India: aligning options and opportunities on a new track. Int Environ Agreements 11, 229–243 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-011-9158-6

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