India (इंडिया)

1. Introduction

India is a country with the world’s second-largest population and 7th largest landmass, which includes a significant forest cover that is an important carbon sink. Hence an analysis of its NDC reflects on how developing nations structure their commitments. Also, a cross-sectional study of its previously achieved targets gives a better insight into the nuances around the NDCs.

NDCs are a document clearly outlining the present situation of the country in terms of their carbon footprint, various strategies that have been put into place to analyse their emission to gauge their commitments towards the Paris agreement, how much they resonate with the UNFCCC charter, what ground has been laid to achieve sustainable development and also to assess their improvement in involvement in reducing climate change and its effects.

In India around 363 million people live in poverty, it is interesting to dissect its NDCs to understand how it is navigating economic development and at the same time progressing towards a sustainable future. Countries have consistently paid more attention to the development and later realised the need for considering mother earth and how their economic potential can be maintained without exhausting resources.

2. Emissions

1.1 Structure 

Firstly, commenting on how the NDC is structured, NDCs are binding document that should reflect on clear-cut plans and commitments. The statements showing the greatness of the old Indian lifestyle of being in one with nature is appreciable but is not a major talking point, especially when needing a country to declare facts and furnish figures and reliable statistics to the world.

Furthermore, comparing the structure of NDCs of various other developing and developed countries, we can find that the overall presentation of the NDC lacks the necessary policies that would be expected from a National Plan. 

1.2.Emission reduction plan

The various macroeconomic models predict that the requirement of India in the coming future will be large, along with a growing trend on rapid urbanisation that can definitely pose a great challenge.

Quoting direct texts from the NDCs: 

• To reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP 

• 33 to 35 percent by 2030 from the 2005 level

• With the help of the transfer of technology and low-cost international finance, including from the Green Climate Fund (GCF)

• To achieve about 40 percent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030 

• To create an additional carbon sink  

• 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030

Studying the track record of India’s commitments towards voluntary contribution and international resolutions. They have achieved several targets and are on the path to achieving more. Furthermore, there is an elaborate description of various National Programmes on how they plan to reduce their emissions by focusing on promotion, financial management, external collaboration, awareness, and capacity building.

However, these elaborate and eye-catching missions can be criticised because they portray India to be over-ambitious and, at the same time, do not display facts and figures of the shortcomings faced last time or deficits they may face fulfilling the current commitments. This shows that India is diplomatic enough to keep its presence as a neutral nature which does not fall in either category.

1.3 Inconsistencies

Research and Policy are the main pillars to present concrete reviews in the NDC.

Quoting the NDC statements again, India has a description of its cess of coal, which is   

That is imposed a cess on coal in 2010 @ INR 50 (USD 0.8) per tonne. Recently it has quadrupled to INR 200 (USD 3.2) per tonne of coal. The coal cess translates into a carbon tax equivalent, using the emission factor for coal, around USD 2 per tonne. This forms the corpus for the National Clean Environment Fund. 

However, India’s draft National Energy Policy released by the Government think tank NITI Aayog in November 2016 outlines ambitious plans to expand coal mining and coal-fired power capacity. India claims that despite this, it will achieve its 2030 target, but studying trends, its critical evaluation is the need of the hour.

3. Gender

2.1 Lack of Gender Policies in the NDC

Ensuring a gender transformative approach within the NDC reflects the country’s commitment to ensuring the inclusion of women. After reviewing the NDC, several conclusions can be drawn, including the lack of gender-inclusive policies, commitments, and solutions to place women at the forefront of climate negotiations. For a greater future, the country needs to tap the potential of the other half of the population to address climate inequities.

2.2 How it can be included 

The NDCs have explained various programmes and campaigns they have exercised to bring awareness, capacitate and bring down emissions. A dedicated section could have been there focussing on gender action plans. The following discussions should have been included within the NDCs. 

• Robust research about the effects of climate change on a vulnerable population, including 

  • The exact effects of climate change, a few of them being floods, droughts, forest fires, cyclones, as well as tsunamis or earthquakes.

  • The research should specifically study the target population and how ecologically weak hotspots and the sudden effects impact the women and girls of these geographical areas.

  • E.g., Droughts have increasing effects on malnutrition within the community. Various ecological studies point out that w taking the burnt of external factors has to suffer the most, resulting in an increased number of anaemic adolescents and pregnant women, and post-menopausal osteoporotic elderly females. 

  • Research like this improves the database from where important decisions can be directed, and significant support can be given. Furthermore, increased attention needs to be given to encouraging and funding such research. 

• Policies to empower local women

  • India has always approached a decentralized approach, and this has proven effective in multiple circumstances, hence working on the same lines, similar strategies can be put into place. Local Women have more decision-making power. The government should provide more incentives to women regarding loans and credits, extra incentives for women in purchasing properties, and equity in higher education. These incentives can be an aid for women to get motivated to develop solutions to combat various climate change challenges.

• National Representation of Women 

  • A panel could be set up within climate initiatives to ensure gender-inclusive policies are adopted. Women should be made leaders to work on projects that affect vulnerable communities in a participatory capacity, planning, monitoring, evaluating, and reporting high priority national or regional projects. The seat at the decision-making table is the need of the hour, and that is the sole path through which a sustainable, inclusive future can be achieved.

• Gender Responsive Budgeting 

  • The Climate, Forest, and Finance ministry should build a model to allocate funds after a thorough needs assessment. 

2.3 Why is it important?

Women and marginalized groups, including gender minorities, are often not benefited from disaster risk reduction policies, strategies, and decision-making due to unequal power relations, gender norms, and gendered socioeconomic inequality. When the majority of the population is involved in achieving a common goal, the results are effective and can be achieved in a shorter period of time. Women have brought about effective solutions in the past and will continue to do so, they have also been more resilient and adaptive to ensure the safety of their families, and they realize that they are in the most disadvantaged position due to the effects of climate change and hence have the maximum motivation to reverse its effects.

4. Youth

The NDCs display a lack of involvement of youth. They fail to address youth as a potential stakeholder that, when given the skills, become assets to the country or even a significant part of the society who require consultations. This places India in a unique position as they have always valued youth to capacitate and tap their potential. However, they never acknowledged them as relevant stakeholders.

A thorough restructuring of the NDCs to ensure the inclusion of a youth-focused action plan is essential. Young individuals must be at the forefront of discussions as there are 1.21 billion people between the ages of 15 and 24 in the world today, accounting for 15.5 percent of the global population.

Their involvement is needed more than ever as their lives depend on the effects the global heat creates on earth; the pandemic is a living example of how climate change has indirectly affected people's lives wherein they have become unemployed, suffered personal losses, or undergoing mental health issues. Young people have become a great support system for countries to bring in innovative solutions to address ground-level problems; hence emphasis to be laid on their importance 

5. Civil Society Inclusion

Civil Society Inclusion is a critical element of inclusive action. Collaborative working with civil societies has always been beneficial for the country. A clear example of it can be the State of Kerala within India which has seen tremendous improvement and sustenance of human development over the years due to the work of several religious and secular institutes that work alongside the regional bureaucracy. The lack of acknowledgement of civil societies in the NDCs portrays a sense of denial and a loss of trust in these institutions, resulting in dampened response initiatives needed for impactful climate action.

6. Climate Justice and Equity

6.1 Indigenous population

The acknowledgement of the indigenous population in mitigating climate action is present within the NDCs while addressing the preservation of the Himalayan Mountains; however, it is limited compared to the potential they possess. A powerful scheme should be designed to improve the skill set of the indigenous population, wherein their traditional knowledge can be incorporated to achieve the goals claimed within the document.

6.2 Minority communities

As a feminist Muslim, I strongly criticize the government for showing a lack of attention to the minority community. India has the largest population practising Islam. It is the largest Sikh, a prominent  Christians and Buddhist population globally, and this shoulders a great responsibility on the governance. They become a significant population who face challenges in daily affairs. The climate inequities further sideline them, making them vulnerable to its effects and facing the brunt of inadequate policies earlier than the rest of the population. Therefore, India needs to prioritize its action plans to safeguard its political standpoint regarding the UNFCCC charter and its moral obligation to its citizens.

6.3 Other Vulnerable populations

Communities that identify themselves as LGBTQ or with people with disabilities have been conveniently omitted from the NDCs. Hence, similar plans have to be put into place to address the inequalities climate change has on them.

7. Current Affairs 

India is the only country among 51 that were invited to the ministerial conference that didn't attend this 2-day meeting in the UK, hosted by the incoming president of the COP26.

India being the world’s 3rd largest emitter failing to attend the global gathering becomes a major concern and can gravely affect the efforts put in towards tackling climate change.