Why 2070 is justified as the net-zero deadline year for India

India’s commitment to figure in the “net zero” matrix by 2070 created a benchmark target for the developing and the underdeveloped world in terms of a timeline, despite criticisms from certain corners of the developed world. The criticism emerges from the fact that India has deviated from the much-accepted 2050 deadline for the avowed goal. The challenge of a “net zero” for India is not an easy one. Being one of the fastest growing economies with the second largest population that aspires to be $5 trillion economy soon, will India be able to circumvent the trade-off between the environment and economic growth? Here, we bring in the perspectives of “green growth” and “degrowth”. Occidental academics and policy makers, especially in the Nordic nations acknowledge that the attempts to nurture current levels of growth are proving to be costly due to climate change, and degradation and depletion of the natural ecosystem. This has not only created a dent on the ecosystem services, but has actually been a deterrent for the traditional cultural ethos, that respects all forms of life on earth. On the other hand, the essential problem with the climate debate is that it is thoroughly carbon-centric as has been mandated by the accident and the global north. Such a carbon-centric discourse unfortunately erases out the equity and distributional concerns that loom large in the global south.

Occidental academics and policy makers, especially in the Nordic nations acknowledge that the attempts to nurture current levels of growth are proving to be costly due to climate change, and degradation and depletion of the natural ecosystem.

Does the solution lie with decoupling economic growth and CO2 emissions, as has often been hypothesised? There is no denying of the developed and developing world’s contribution to the process of degradation of the ambient environment because of its inherent “growth fetishism”. Planetary boundaries which needed to be adhered to for humanity to continue to live and thrive into the future, are under tremendous stress and some of them including climate change have already been breached. Given these violations, growth can be “green” only if absolute decoupling occurs between growth and carbon emissions. Therefore, the notion of “green growth” started being accepted as the solution to the problem. We argue here that such decoupling of growth from environmental degradation is practically and axiomatically impossible. In a 2016 paper, Ward et al on the basis of an analytical macro-model, infer, “ growth in GDP ultimately cannot plausibly be decoupled from growth in material and energy use, demonstrating categorically that GDP growth cannot be sustained indefinitely. It is therefore misleading to develop a growth-oriented policy around the expectation that decoupling is possible”. This has its implications for CO2 emissions, as the loss of forests, agro-ecosystems, or wetlands in pursuit of economic growth is prone to destroy the sink mechanisms for carbon. Therefore, “green growth” is an oxymoron. Growth is necessarily “brown” in colour, with its concomitant costs, On the other hand, the degrowth school, while contesting the green growth hypothesis on the above ground, proposes a retraction from the present ways of living through contraction of economic activities in the global north. It is further believed that this will create the space for a more self-delineated trajectory of social organisation in the global south. Contrary to popular thinking that degrowth is a fashionable statement for those parts of the world that have already grown (i.e. the global north), it is actually a statement emanating from a world that is more equitable, where social security is strong enough to act as a cushion during a crisis, where policies have been effected on distributive justice, and where reliance on market forces for meeting social needs is less.

The concern of India and the underdeveloped world of the developing nations cannot be looked at through the lens of “net zero” that has emerged mostly as an occidental construct for the global north.

Therefore, the occident can aspire to have a “net zero” ambition as the sole objective in a climate negotiation table, as their equity concerns are largely met. This makes EU think of the European Green Deal to become the world's first “climate-neutral bloc” by 2050.

The Indian Vision and Priorities

India’s development vision has been much in the opposite direction. Given the present development status of India, leapfrogging to absolute decoupling might come in the ways of promoting equity concerns. With India’s per capita GDP being as low as $1901 and a HDI (Human Development Index) rank being 131 (out of 189 nations), absolute decoupling will imply that there will be a stiff competition for limited fiscal resources between increasing the rate of technological efficiency and the economic growth rate. It cannot combat the climate problem through a degrowth thinking at this point. The concern of India and the underdeveloped world of the developing nations cannot be looked at through the lens of “net zero” that has emerged mostly as an occidental construct for the global north. The impacts of climate change on the ecosystem services (services provided free of cost to the human community by the natural ecosystem) are completely ignored in the negotiation tables. Pawan Sukhdev’s paper in Nature in 2009 interpreted the monetary values of the ecosystem services as “GDP of the Poor”, with 57 per cent of the poor’s income in India being sourced from nature. Therefore, despite criticisms, Indian ambition of “net zero” by 2070 is justified in terms of the timeline, as the baggage that the developing world carries to meet its distributional concerns are multiple and more complex than the developed world. A holistic development paradigm plugging in the ecosystem and distribution concerns in development is the need of the hour for India. Neither the oxymoronic “green growth” hypothesis, nor the occidental “degrowth” construct is sufficient to address those priorities.

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This commentary originally appeared in India Today.

• Climate Change
• India
• carbon-centric
• CO2 emissions
• Degrowth
• Green Growth
• net zero

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