The Economic Survey has made a strong pitch for developed nations to transfer money to developing countries in the fight against climate change.
“Developed countries should honour their financial obligations and promises under the multilateral environmental agreements. The world that benefited from carbon emissions that made them developed, must repay,” the Survey said.
Citing the commitments of developed countries under a host of international climate declarations and agreements, such as the Copenhagen Accord and the Paris Agreement, the survey expressed disappointment in the insufficient transfer of funds to the Green Climate Fund (GCF).
“In 2009, developed countries committed to a goal of mobilising jointly $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries and decided that a significant portion of such funding should flow through the GCF. In contrast, the total pledges to the GCF in the Initial Resource Mobilisation (IRM) in 2014, the largest dedicated climate fund, are a meagre $10.3 billion,” the Survey said.
“GCF’s first replenishment (2020- 2023) process so far witnessed 28 countries pledging resources to replenish the fund for an amount of $9.7 billion, which is even quantitatively lower than the IRM period,” it added.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government had earned international praise for exceeding expectations in its commitments to reduce India’s carbon dioxide emissions under the Paris Agreement in 2016, those targets have recently been overshadowed by both Chinese President Xi Jinping’s surprise announcement of a 2060 carbon neutrality target as well as US President Joe Biden’s aggressive promises and early momentum on climate change.
Climate goals
In contrast, at the UN climate summit last month, Modi refrained from announcing a scaling up of India’s climate goals. “While the calls for raising of the ambition level of all countries and closing the emissions gap to limit temperature rise by 1.5-2 degree C above pre-industrial level were very intense at the recent climate talks, the key enabler, the climate finance, the major crunch issue remained unresolved,” the Survey said.
The election victory of Biden in the US has renewed hopes for improvement in the developed countries’ performance on climate finance. For a significant acceleration in transfer of funds, the lion’s share would have to come from the US, the biggest historic emitter of carbon dioxide.
Three biggest emitters
Today, China, the US, and India, in that order, remain the three biggest emitters of carbon dioxide. While India’s emissions growth rate is the highest among the three, the country also has a comparatively lower base as well as a much more energy-starved population. On an average basis, an American’s carbon footprint continues to be about 27 times that of an Indian.
“India’s proactive climate actions mainly rely on the domestic budgetary resources. Climate finance is critical to fulfil the nationally determined contribution targets submitted by India in a timely manner,” the Survey said.
While developed countries’ action on previous promises remains elusive, the “issue of achieving consensus on the definition of climate finance, transparency mechanism, common time frames and a long-term climate finance will continue to remain top priority in COP 26,” which is scheduled to be held in November, the survey said.