An internal note prepared by the Planning Commission, and endorsed by the Prime Minister, says India by simply maintaining the current growth tempo, can cut its carbon emission intensity of GDP by up to 39% by 2020 from the 2005 base. Therefore, the voluntary target of 20-25% cut in emission intensity announced by the government in Parliament on Thursday actually does not commit to any big reduction in carbon emissions in absolute terms. In fact, India?s new proposal merely seeks to keep its own carbon space for development while pushing the developed economies to respond to the new formulation of ?carbon intensity of GDP.?
?The West has problems with the per capita carbon emission formulation. But they cannot quarrel with the carbon intensity of GDP model as they too are interested in growth,? Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told FE.
As far as India is concerned, the debate merely shifts to carbon intensity, which is nothing but the quantum of emission per unit of GDP. The new strategy will result in reduced intensity of carbon emissions with respect to the GDP. This position allows India to retain its carbon space while moving away from the per capita emission model.
Ahluwalia explained that the carbon intensity model may not meet the overall objective of global carbon reductions unless the developed world also gives substantial commitments on reducing carbon intensity of GDP. He said reductions would be possible only if the OECD governments made big technology breakthroughs. However, India would not face this compulsion as it could continue to maintain its current growth path with available technologies.
In India?s case, a faster GDP growth of 8% per year, which looks eminently achievable, would considerably bring down implicit elasticity of emissions to growth from the past pattern and automatically mitigate emissions at a faster pace.
The Planning Commission, which anchored the government?s internal discussions of the matter, noted that India?s emission elasticity with respect to GDP came down to 0.59 between 2000 and 2005, from 0.83 in the previous decade. The reduced elasticity helped the country to cut its emission intensity by 17.6% to 1.471 kg per GDP in dollar by 2005 as against China?s 2.96 and Russia?s 2.999 kg. The elasticity came down on the back of improvements in technology, energy-mix and energy efficiency, all offshoots of sharper economic growth.?If you make a projection using the elasticity of 0.59, the emission intensity of India?s GDP would fall by 37% by 2020 from the base of 2005,?Ahluwalia said. It is reasonable to plan on the basis of a feasible reduction in emission intensity of GDP of at least 20% and possibly even 25% by 2020 on a 2005 base, he added.
The Planning Commission?s note quotes four estimates that put the percentage reduction in emission intensity by 2020 in the range of 26-39%. These estimates?by Ncaer-CGE, Teri and ministry of environment and forests, Irade and McKinsey?propose emission intensity of growth as the yardstick instead of the West?s very contestable per-capita emission formula. They adopt an alternative approach to measuring emission intensity by using an economy-wide model in which growth of energy demand is endogenous. A number of factors like energy-mix, investments and growth rate are reckoned for the determination of the emission level.