India Only G20 Nation On Track To Meet Paris Climate Agreement 2°C Goal
India is the only country among G20 nations which is “on track” to meeting its 2C goal as promised in the 2015 Paris Agreement, a global coalition report showed recently. According to the Climate Transparency report (CT) 2020 released on Wednesday, India’s actions on climate targets set under 2015 Paris Agreement makes it compatible to achieve curbs on global warming by 2 degrees Celsius. The climate action tracker has put China in the ‘highly sufficient category’ despite its promise to become carbon neutral by 2060, according to a report,
Ajay Mathur, the Director – The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), told The Times of India that India has become “an example” for others to “move the world to a 2-degree C warming future” adding that the country met its requirements through “large scale adoption of renewable electricity.” “(India’s) experience of enabling growth in the power, transport and industry sectors to be based on zero-carbon-emissions technologies would have huge replicative value in other G20 countries,” he felt.
According to the report, other nations and the European Union’s targets do not go far enough to curb global warming between 1.5 to 2 C, and their actions have fallen short of the targets set when the Paris agreement was ratified. Projected temperature increases under these commitments are now expected to be more than 2.7 C of warming by 2100. No country, barring Japan, has submitted new targets until now, although the report noted that Japan has made no changes to its original target. The report also called for a reduction of global CO2 emissions to curb global warming. While CO2 emissions levels fell owing to the lockdowns following the spread of COVID-19, the report said that some countries were back to the 2019 levels for CO2 emissions.
According to the report, the EU’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per capita declined over the past decade. However, the bloc’s goals of curbing emissions by 40% by 2030 were rated “insufficient” in meeting the Paris Agreement’s goals. The report called for a reduction in the use of coal by countries including Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Romania — which have yet to develop a phase-out plan for coal.
China’s GHG emissions continue to be above the G20 average and are expected to peak by 2030. The report called for a withdrawal of coal pipeline projects at home and abroad to limit air quality issues and emissions. The US, which formally exited the Paris Agreement earlier this month, has GHG emissions more than double the average of all G20 nations. US transport emissions per capita are over four times the G20 average and even increased by 3.6% from 2016-18.