What India Expects From The Developed World’s Climate Plans

The global climate conference, called the 29th Conference of Parties or COP29 is underway in Azerbaijan, and countries have already engaged in argument on agenda items -- most significantly, a new finance goal that determines how much developing countries like India should receive to combat and adapt to climate change. The money is important for these countries to implement their existing climate plans and set ambitious new goals.

So far, last year’s COP host UAE and next year’s host Brazil have submitted the third iterations of their climate plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs 3.0. While the UK has not submitted an official plan, it has announced the headline item: to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions by at least 81 percent of 1990 levels by 2035. As for the USA, attendees belong to the current Biden administration, but Donald Trump winning the Presidential election and being slated to take office on January 20, 2025 has made climate observers nervous.

The US has also hinted that China can do more apropos a more ambitious climate plan and disbursing funds to developing countries, whereas the G77+China bloc have categorically rejected the idea of widening the donor pool. Currently, “developed countries” are defined as the 24 countries that were members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1992, when the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed.

Developed countries, which had promised $100 billion to developing countries every year to deal with climate change, delivered on that promise very late, and their not taking the lead in submitting revised climate plans, let alone ambitious ones, might lead to subdued climate action from the rest of the world as well, experts fear.

“India would continue to engage in discussions around the strengthening of collective global climate action and call upon the developed countries to ramp up their climate ambitions,” sources in the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) told the media on November 12.

Warmest year, coldest response

While the world hasn’t breached the 1.5 degrees Celsius mark yet, the global average temperature was 1.54 (±0.13)°C above pre-industrial levels in the period January-September 2024. The last 10 years have been the warmest on record and, as ocean heat rises, the ice level in the Antarctic is at its second lowest level in history.

Heat-related mortality in people older than 65 years increased by a record-breaking 167% compared with the 1990s, 102 percentage points higher than what would have been expected without temperature rise, the 2024 Lancet Countdown showed. The average annual economic losses from weather-related extreme events increased by 23 percent from 2010–14 to 2019–23, to $227 billion.

Each year from 2014 to 2023, an average of 42.7 percent of India’s land mass experienced at least one month of extreme drought, nearly double what was seen from 1950 to 1960. In 2023, people were exposed to moderate or higher risk of heat stress during light outdoor activities for an average of 2,400 hours per year, or the equivalent of 100 days per year, as per the Countdown.

The global report’s findings were reflected in Indian research as well.

In 2024, India faced extreme weather events on 93 percent of days in the year’s first nine months, claiming around 3,238 lives, affecting 3.2 million hectares of crops, destroyed 235,862 structures, and killed approximately 9,457 livestock, as per the findings of the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment’s State of Extreme Weather 2024 report.

Despite such clear and present danger signals, the world is not on track to reduce emissions, phase down fossil fuels and increase renewable energy to prevent the worst of global warming.

In fact, host Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev branded oil and gas as a ‘gift from god’ during his remarks at the opening of COP29.

NDCs 3.0: More shine than substance?

An analysis of countries’ existing climate action plans as of October 2024 show that total greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 are [going to be] approximately the same as in 2019. In 2030, however, emissions are projected to be 2.6 percent lower than in 2019, as well as 2.8 percent lower than the estimated level for 2025, indicating the possibility of global emissions peaking before 2030. This is in context of the second round of NDCs having had 2030 climate targets.

“However, in order to achieve that peaking, the conditional elements of the NDCs need to be implemented, which depends mostly on access to enhanced financial resources, technology transfer and technical cooperation, and capacity-building support; availability of market-based mechanisms; and absorptive capacity of forests and other ecosystems,” the NDC Synthesis report prepared by the UNFCCC warns.

As per the Paris Agreement, NDCs 3.0 are supposed to be submitted by February 2025. Setting the bar at COP29 are UAE and Brazil, which have already submitted theirs. Azerbaijan is expected to submit its revised NDC during this COP.

“Brazil is setting an economy-wide target of reducing its net greenhouse gas emissions by 59 to 67 percent below 2005 levels by 2035,” its NDC, announced on November 13, projected.

“Brazil has announced a range of climate targets that goes from reasonable to insufficient,” said Karen Silverwood-Cope, Climate Director, World Resources Institute Brasil. “On the one hand, reducing emissions by 67 percent by 2035 could put Brazil on the path to climate neutrality by 2050. On the other hand, reducing emissions by only 59 percent by 2035 is a contribution that falls short of what is necessary to achieve the same goal. The announcement of a range with such width of impact on the country's contribution raises uncertainty about the real path that the government will pursue.”

UAE has a net zero target or, in simple words, a target to become carbon neutral, by the year 2050. Ahead of COP29, it submitted its NDC 3.0 which sets a target of reducing emissions by 47 percent by 2035 compared to the 2019 baseline.

Mohamed Kamal, Director of Greenish Foundation and member of Climate Action Network (Arab World) however criticised the plan as it ‘does not include any commitment to phase out fossil fuels or to stop the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure.’

“With a rather limited target of 30 percent of “clean energy” for 2030 including nuclear (and no target for 2035), it is unclear how the domestic objective of reducing energy emissions by 50 percent by 2035 will be reached,” Kamal pointed out. “Promises of achieving negative emissions through mangrove afforestation, and false solutions like carbon capture, cannot compensate for the lack of ambition to achieve deep, rapid and sustained emissions reductions in the energy sector and beyond.”

The UK also announced its vision for 2035. On November 12, Prime Minister M Keir Starmer announced that the UK’s 2035 NDC target is to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions by at least 81 percent on 1990 levels.

“While the headline figure is impressive, to unleash business-led investment in clean energy, the UK must deliver comprehensive plans for how the NDC will transform priority sectors like heating and buildings,” said Maria Mendiluce, CEO of We Mean Business Coalition.

Developed countries should lead the way

Developed nations have to account for developing countries’ growth needs while setting their NDCs, believes Manish Kumar Shrivastava, Associate Director, Earth Science and Climate Change, The Energy and Resources Institute.

“Given the historical responsibility of developed countries, early peaking of global emissions has to be driven by their collective ambition even if emissions from developing countries rise to meet their immediate development needs,” Shrivastava said. “Hence, the NDCs of developed countries must be ambitious enough that they can compensate for the global emission gap as estimated by the UNEP Gap reports.”

What Shrivastava was referring to is findings from this year’s UNEP Emissions Gap report. One finding showed that greenhouse gas emissions across the G20 member countries actually increased in 2023 and accounted for 77 percent of global emissions. If all African Union countries are added to the G20 total, more than doubling the number of countries from 44 to 99, total emissions increased by just 5 percent.

Madhura Joshi, India Lead at E3G, an independent climate change think tank, believes that global leaders need to reaffirm their commitment to the energy package that was agreed at COP28 last year. She was referring to the outcomes of last year’s conference wherein countries agreed to triple renewable energy, double energy efficiency and transition away from fossil fuels.

“Wealthy countries must lead the way and reflect sectoral energy transition targets in their NDCs,” Joshi said. “These must include plans for full power sector decarbonisation by 2035, with commitments to immediately end new coal approvals and phase out coal by 2030 as critical interim steps. Power sector goals must be complemented with explicit targets for phasing out all fossil fuels by mid-century, starting with a commitment to end new oil and gas licensing.”

“NDCs 3.0 are our chance to do something,” UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen recently said. “They are in fact our last chance to avoid overshooting 1.5°C.”

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