The trend of uncomfortable ambient temperatures has become a global phenomenon. For India, the situation is more alarming given huge carbon emissions and the country’s inescapable dependence on fossil fuels. The narrative must change
We are already well into the mid of December but biting cold is yet to make itself evident and remind us that winter is truly here. As hotter days still rule the roost, most of us are yet to take out our woolens, let alone using them. The inescapable observation of rising average temperatures is not limited to India alone but the trend of uncomfortable ambient temperatures is making itself apparent across the world. To make matters worse, this upward trajectory of global temperatures, leading to almost definite conditions of future warming, does not seem like getting under control anytime soon.
A latest paper published by Carnegie’s Patrick Brown and Ken Caldeira in the journal, Nature, in fact delivers even worse news. The paper extrapolates that under the present “business as usual” attitude, in which humans go on burning fossil fuels to power economic growth, could lead to at least 15 per cent spike in global warming by 2100.
These estimates are much more alarming than the observations made earlier by the United Nations regarding rising temperatures. The paper also narrows down the uncertainty level regarding future warming possibilities. Climate scientists had worked on the assumption that there was a 62 per cent chance that the world would have warmed on an average by more than four degree Celsius if no action was taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But thanks to the paper, future warming uncertainties have been considerably narrowed as the paper states that there is now a 93 per cent chance that global warming will exceed four degree Celsius by as early as 2100.
With climate temperatures poised to go north in future, India’s position is especially delicate given the fact that of all the most polluting nations — the US, China, Russia, Japan and the EU bloc — only India’s carbon emissions are rising. The year 2016 saw a jump of five per cent in carbon emissions as a country of 1.3 billion population is fast consuming all options of energy, including fossil fuels to power its economic growth. Moreover, India’s vast population means that even a small increase in emissions per person adds up to a huge amount of carbon dioxide, causing India to rapidly move up the most polluting nations list.
The quest and thirst for economic prosperity that is powered by fossil fuels has somewhat helped India to surge ahead, but now the ill effects of the same in the form of ecological liabilities are fast catching up. According to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) study, a one degree rise in temperature can cause India’s per capita output to fall by 1.33 percentage points.India is fast emerging as a nation that can script a better climate for the world in the future provided it reduces its reliance on fossil fuels such as coal.
The fact that India is the third-largest carbon emitter, after China and America or that coal is used to fire up 61 per cent of India’s power-generating capacity and the fact that Coal India is the world’s biggest coal company do not help things either in salvaging India’s pro-ecological image to the world. Since coal generates more carbon emissions when it is burned than other fossil fuels — to say nothing of its effect on air quality — India is a crucial protagonist in the battle against climate change.
India today cannot afford to project its environmental conscience and at the same time consume fossil fuels with ever-increasing pace. This coupled with painstakingly slow process of building up renewable energy capacity is taking a serious toll on the environment in India, besides setting up the stage for dreadful future warming conditions. The NDA Government has got the plot right when it plans to whittle down coal dependency and instead provide alternate power to nearly 240 million power impoverished sections of Indian population through 175w of renewable energy by 2022. These developments are crucial as they set the stage for changing India’s narrative on environment and in the process make a huge contribution towards mitigating climate change.
It is also of outmost importance for the Government to pull out all stops in favour of efficiently managing the energy supply and put in place and even more effective demand based economic pricing of energy. This coupled with removal of wasteful subsidies and reduction of transmission and distribution losses can become essential tools to achieve the objective of clean energy powered India that has done its bit to avoid contributing to the spectre of future warming.
(The writer is an environmental journalist)