In the 1975 classic, Deewar, Shashi Kapoor, playing a police officer, keeps telling his on-screen brother Amitabh Bachchan who has taken up a life of crime, ‘Bhai, tum sign karoge ya nahi?’ (Brother, will you sign [the letter of surrender] or not?).
India being obligated to join the net-zero bandwagon is not unlike Bachchan’s character being forced by his brother to surrender to the police and rectify his ways. Except, unlike in the film, ‘Ma’ – the two feuding brothers’ mother – ‘Ma,’ in the real world ‘moral authority’, stands with India, the non-signatory.
India’s moral authority comes from it being the only large country so far on track to a 2oC-compliant world under the Paris accord. Its cumulative greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the last 150 years have been less than 5%, while it supports over 17% of the global population. Despite having 60% farmers dependent on rain-fed agriculture, a 7,500 km coastline, and 60% of its nearly 1.3 billion people living on less than $3.10 a day, India has one of the most ambitious renewable energy (RE) targets in the world, with 45,0000 MW of renewable power capacity by 2030 — almost a five-fold increase from today.
As against this, the real-life ‘police officer’ — the industrialised countries — have grossly faltered on their commitment to provide $100 billion finance each year by 2020 to support climate actions in developing countries. Their cumulative GHG emissions during 1990-2018 have reduced by less than 2% (excluding the former Soviet Union, since its emissions reduced by around 50% in 1990 owing to a sharp decline in economic activities upon its disintegration) as against 25-40% reduction requirements.
Collectively, the developed countries have consumed around 75% of the global carbon budget since industrialisation, and should they reach net-zero by 2050 as ‘promised’. The US would have consumed 22% of remaining global budget, the EU about 15%, and China another 70% — making negative emissions a necessity for the world, without any current proven technologies at scale.
To reclaim moral authority, the industrialised countries have to walk the talk now, and not pressurize for net-zero by 2050. The four actions to impress ‘Ma’ are: deposit $100 billion for 2020 immediately, and continue these payments each year as promised; advance their own net-zero targets to around 2035, to leave some global carbon space to allow countries like India meet their developmental aspirations under sustainable development goals (SDGs); share cutting-edge technologies freely, such as battery storage for electricity and electric vehicles (EV), CO2 capture utilisation and storage, hydrogen, advanced bioenergy and nuclear power with developing countries; and facilitate providing cheaper finance through global financial institutions for climate change actions in developing countries, especially for MSMEs that employ over 110 million people in India.
If climate change is a catastrophe, no country should try making profit out of another’s misery. Once ‘Ma’ is contended, the two ‘feuding brothers’ can play ball and no longer continue their ‘industrialised countries vs developing countries’ fight.
(The writer is professor, IIM Ahmedabad)
