Indian Experts Demand Fair Carbon Space To Tackle Climate Change

Paris: Amidst efforts to revise the global warming target to within 1.5 degree Celsius from pre-industrial times, Indian experts today demanded that the world must agree to a fair allocation of carbon space and enhance financial and technological support to developing countries.

Noting that developed countries will have to significantly increase the level of their own efforts and reach net zero emissions in the next 5-10 years, they said that if they fail to do so, the 1.5 degree target will "remain a hollow shell-devoid of any real significance".

The experts include T Jayaraman who is a professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Anand Patwardhan, professor at the University of Maryland and IIT-Bombay and Chandra Bhushan, Deputy Director General, Centre for Science and Environment.

"While we welcome this increase in ambition, we would like to draw the attention of the climate negotiators to the need to allocate the remaining carbon budget in a fair manner to all countries so that there is a chance for meeting this temperature target.

"We would also like to emphasise the fact that meeting this temperature goal would require massive enhancement of financial and technological support from the developed countries to the developing countries so that they are able to move quickly onto low-carbon development pathways," said three Indian experts in a joint statement.

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Developed countries have openly given their support to this goal while India and China have also shown their willingness to consider this temperature goal.

Commenting about the practicality of 1.5 degree Celsius temperature goal, they said that as per the Fifth Assessment report of IPCC (AR5), for a 50 per cent probability of limiting temperature increase to 1.5 degree, the total carbon dioxide emissions allowed from 2011 till 2100 amount to 550 giga-tonnes (Gt) of CO2.

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For a 33 per cent probability of keeping temperature increase below 1.5 degree, the corresponding figure for cumulative emissions is 850 Gt CO2.

But if the world wants to raise the certainty of meeting this temperature goal to 66 per cent, then the budget shrinks to a mere 400 Gt CO2, they said.

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The United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change's (UNFCCC) synthesis report on the aggregate effect of the intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) estimates that the global carbon dioxide emissions for 2011-2025 will aggregate to 542 Gt CO2 and for 2011-2030 will aggregate to 748 Gt CO2.