India calls for increased climate finance

In a statement ahead of the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — COP27 — event in Egypt, which began on November 6, India called on rich countries to live up to their promise of providing $100 billion in annual climate finance to developing nations and urged them to increase the amount for future years at next week’s UN climate conference. In 2009, developed countries most responsible for global warming pledged to give $100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing nations deal with its consequences.

From 6 to 18 November, Heads of State, ministers and negotiators, along with climate activists, mayors, civil society representatives and corporates are meeting in the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh for the largest annual gathering on climate action.

“The goal of $100 billion per year of climate finance by 2020 and every year thereafter through till 2025 is yet to be achieved...While the promised amount must be reached as quickly as possible, there is a need now to substantially enhance the ambition to ensure adequate resource flow under the new quantified goal post-2024,” the government said in a statement.

COP27 hopes to build on the outcomes of COP26 to deliver action on an array of issues critical to tackling the climate emergency — from urgently reducing greenhouse gas emissions, building resilience and adapting to the inevitable impacts of climate change, to delivering on the commitments to finance climate action in developing countries.

Faced with a growing energy crisis, record greenhouse gas concentrations, and increasing extreme weather events, COP27 also seeks renewed solidarity between countries, to deliver on the landmark Paris Agreement, for people and the planet.

Apart from the official delegation, according to a report in the Indian Express, four Indians have also been selected for the conference for their works in initiating impactful climate actions. They were shortlisted from among 300 people by the United Nations Development Program, Unicef and the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. They are Nikhilkumar Panchal from Ahmedabad, Pune-based Prachi Shevgaonkar, Elizabth Eapen from Pathanamthitta and Suhana R H from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala.

Eapen (22) has developed a waste reduction project for her college cafe through initiatives like “bring your own cup”, waste segregation in colour coded bins and installing water coolers in canteen. Panchal (24) is a founder of the start-up ‘Green Aadhar’, a digital infrastructure for plastic waste management sector. Suhana R H has initiated waste management at Karimadom slum in Thiruvananthapuram. Shevgaonkar is a founder of Cool The Globe — an app for climate action that motivates people to make small lifestyle changes. The app has 30,000 users from 110 countries and has collectively saved 2 million kg of greenhouse gas emissions — equivalent of planting about 100,000 trees.

On a more sombre note however, a recent IndiaSpend article pointed out that India’s plans to decarbonize the heavy duty transport segments of aviation, shipping and trucking are still at a nascent stage and new policies are needed to ensure and support their transition to clean energy for India to meet its climate change pledges, according to several studies and climate change policy experts. These sectors are among the largest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) globally, accounting for one-fourth of all GHG emissions, per an October 2020 report by Washington DC based Brookings Institution.

The article points out that In India, the aviation and shipping segments at present account for negligible emissions when compared to trucks, four-wheelers and buses, reflecting their lower use compared to road and rail transport, according to a June 2022 study by New-Delhi-based Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). GHG emissions from the transport sector, however, are expected to increase at a much faster rate in developing countries alongside rising income, population and urbanization, says a 2018 report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Unless sustained emissions mitigation policies are implemented, emissions from the sector could increase at a faster rate than any other energy-using sector, the IPCC report said.

The IndiaSpend article examined how India is planning to decarbonise its heavy-duty transport segments and found that these segments’ transition to clean energy is not straightforward. While passenger transport vehicles, such as four-wheelers, three-wheelers, two-wheelers and buses, will see a structural transition to electric vehicles by 2050 in India, per the CEEW study, shifts in heavy duty transport will take much more time because of either a lack of technology or steep costs of existing alternatives.