The CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and a member of a high-level expert group set up by the UN Secretary-General says emissions growth in the past decade has been the highest ever.
The CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and a member of a high-level expert group set up by the UN Secretary-General says emissions growth in the past decade has been the highest ever.
he talked Hindu About the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), its implications for India and what the expert group tries to achieve. edited excerpt
What is your opinion on the latest IPCC report?
It is a clear reminder of what we know about the impact of climate change and that the world is on an unstable path. The world is on track for the 3.5-4 C route (a rise in temperature by the end of the century), compared to the aspirational goal of keeping temperatures below 1.5C-2C under the Paris Agreement. It’s important to remember that the space to put it back on a sustainable path is shrinking. Some of the new findings in this report are highlighting this discrepancy between the slow growth rate of emissions and the increase in absolute emissions. The growth rate of emissions has decreased from 2.1% per year (2001–2009) to 1.3% over the past decade. However, the growth in emissions over the past decade has been the highest ever. Another important message from the report is that removing carbon dioxide (from the atmosphere) is almost essential to living within the net zero ambitions that the world has set for itself.
You mean we need technologies that assist with carbon capture?
No, it’s different. Carbon capture occurs at a source, such as a power plant or cement plant (where the emitted carbon dioxide is trapped and usually stored underground). I mean actually taking the existing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. This includes a spectrum of technologies from forests, which are natural sinks, to things like ‘advanced weathering’, (which includes using) certain types of rocks that can better absorb CO2; Ocean fertilization (increasing the alkalinity of the oceans and thus their ability to absorb carbon dioxide) or it can be mechanical techniques such as direct air capture (DAC). These technologies are under development and governance mechanism is missing for them.
While India has committed to increase forests, talks do not take place on developing DAC technologies in India? Does this mean that India will have to fund technology development along these lines?
I have advocated for some time that India should consider greenhouse gas removal as an important area of research. The equations don’t add up otherwise. Net-zero (India has committed to a net zero year of 2070) means you will still have some sources of carbon dioxide that you cannot eliminate and therefore you need technologies (to remove CO2 For). Whether it is through natural sinks or mechanical processes, it is something that requires serious thinking.
The latest report seems to suggest that coal plants without carbon capture should no longer be allowed. However, India’s policy, while committed to increasing solar and wind power, is to build more coal plants. How do we solve it?
The IPCC report says that if you do not have CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) then globally coal consumption will have to fall by 67-82% by 2030. In my organization, we have CCS and without CCS (forecast scenario). Even if we had CCS, we would still need 5,600 gigawatts (1 gigawatt, or GW, one billion watts) of solar power to meet our net zero goals (at 2070). About 7,000 GW would be required. , India’s trajectory shows that coal continues to be used in the power sector and industry in the near future. The question, however, is how do we use this coal more efficiently, which means burning less coal and producing less emissions while getting the same amount of energy (currently). Second, we have to experiment with CCS technologies to ensure that plants in operation can reduce emissions. Finally, India will need to start investing in technologies this decade, even if they only scale beyond 2030. This is where ‘Green Hydrogen’ becomes important as it shows that India is seriously considering alternative fuels. India is the second largest steel producer, and coal is required to make steel. Therefore, if we cannot think of alternative fuels to steel, or say fertilizers and cement, we run the risk of higher emissions, missing out on emerging technologies and responding to changing market conditions. Not giving what products may be allowed. Therefore, India has to invest in global partnership and co-development of new technologies.
Whether the report adequately relies on climate justice and equality, or whether developed countries should do more to transfer finance and technology to developing countries. India has raised this issue in many forums.
The IPCC report is telling the world what needs to be done but it has hidden nuances when it says ‘the investment we need globally in clean infrastructure is 3-6 times more than what we need’. But why this investment is not going to the places where they are needed is the big question. For me it is not about answering yes or no about equity, but about why we consistently fail to have an evidence-driven yet approach towards climate mitigation. If it doesn’t, we’ll be in a cycle of constant rhetoric instead of action.
You are part of an expert group – the only Indian – set up by the UN Secretary General to set strong and clear standards for net-zero emissions pledges by non-state entities – including businesses, investors, cities . What is this group expected to do?
In a word, the purpose of this group is faith. The world of climate action is far more fragmented than it was 30 years before the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was drafted. On the one hand, you have national governments that have come out with policies on their climate actions. Sometimes these become international commitments and sometimes they can be made by actors who are not part of governments – companies, cities etc. We have seen that when national governments are not ambitious about what should have been done, other actors lead us. We saw this when the Trump administration withdrew from the Paris Agreement, with some states continuing on their climate action. This means that climate action has different sources, they can all be included in national commitments, or they can inspire states to do more by example. This means that what these other actors do needs to be reliably defined, reliably monitored, reported and verified. It will instill confidence in the multilateral process to advance climate action.