Is India the Main Stumbling Block at Climate Talks?

"India has failed to really convince many developing countries why it wants to continue using coal," said Joydeep Gupta, director of the web site India Climate Dialogue, speaking on a panel earlier this week.  It often aspires to be "the new China," critics say.  But it doesn't want to follow China's new pathway of reducing reliance on coal. 

India is the world's fourth largest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China, the United States and the European Union.  But its per capita emissions remain only a tenth those of the U.S. As it industrializes and strives to get electricity to the 400 million people currently still in the dark, the potential for massive further increases in emissions is huge. 

India argues that investment in solar power will curb that increase.  Its emissions pledges in Paris should, it says, reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 33-35 per cent between 2005 and 2030.  That sounds like a lot, but is only half the Chinese pledge. 

Shukla's analysis of India's emissions pledges — its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution, in the conference jargon — is sobering.  Despite the rapid spread of renewables, India's continued addiction to coal would increase its CO2 emissions by 60 percent by 2030 with further rises in the future.  He expects them to reach 5.9 gigatons, which is less than the business-as-usual figure of about 7 gigatons, but far above the 3.7 gigatons that Shukla says would be consistent with a two-degree pathway for the world.  A two-degree pathway would require the country to reduce the carbon intensity of its economy not by 35 percent but by about 60 percent.

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