Is India set to beat own emissions target

There may be some good news for the Indian government's renewable energy ambitions as a latest climate change tracker report indicates the country may be on the road to exceed its own emissions target.India recently submitted its 'Intended Nationally Determined Contribution' (INDC), including the targets to lower the emissions intensity of GDP by 33 to 35 per cent by 2030 below 2005 levels, to increase the share of non-fossil based power generation capacity to 40 per cent of installed electric power capacity by 2030 (equivalent to 26-30 per cent of generation in 2030), and to create an additional (cumulative) carbon sink of 2.5-3 GtCO2e through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.For 2020, India has earlier put forward a pledge to reduce the emissions intensity of GDP by 20-25 per cent by 2020, below 2005 levels.With the policies it currently has in place, including its already-announced target of 175 GW of renewable energy by 2022, the 'Climate Action Tracker' estimates India would achieve an around 41.5 per cent reduction in emissions intensity of GDP by 2030 - exceeding its new target. The 175 GW of renewable energy by 2022 already gets the share of non-fossil capacity to 36 per cent by 2030. Achieving its stated 40 per cent share of nonfossil capacity by 2030 would also mean India would exceed the intensity target by an even wider margin - an energy intensity reduction of 41-44 per cent below 2005 levels.However, this target remains conditional on international funding.'Climate Action Tracker', which has given India a 'medium' rating, concludes: “Current policy projections for 2030 are in line with fair shares based on converging per capita emissions for all countries to the same level (equality), and staged approaches.“The 'medium' rating indicates that India's climate commitments are at the least ambitious end of what would be a fair contribution.“India did not announce a peaking year for GHG emissions yet, like other developing countries such as China have done. Based on our effort-sharing analysis, India's emissions indeed would not need to peak before 2050 to contribute a fair share of global emission reductions. However, to be rated “sufficient”, India's emissions growth would have to slow down compared to current policy projections.”*Source: Climate Action Tracker