India pledges new climate crisis goal: Net zero by 2070
- Posted By
10Pointer
- Categories
Environment
- Published
3rd Nov, 2021
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Context
As part of a five-point action plan, Indian government has announced that the country will reach carbon neutrality by 2070.
What is ‘net zero’?
- Net Zero refers to a balance where emissions of greenhouse gases are offset by the absorption of an equivalent amount from the atmosphere.
- It is seen as a critical measure to successfully tackle climate change and its devastating consequences.
The other important commitments
- India will increase its non-fossil energy capacity to 550GW by 2030.
- India will meet 50% of its energy requirement from renewable energy by 2030.
- India will reduce the total projected carbon emissions by one billion tones from now to 2030.
- India will reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 45% (from a previous target of 35%).
Important facts
- India has the lowest per capita emissions of the world’s major economies -- emitting 5% of the total, despite accounting for 17% of the world’s population.
- In absolute terms, India is the fourth largest carbon emitter after China and the United States.
- China has pledged to turn carbon neutral by 2060 while the US and the European Union – as a block, EU nations together account for the third largest volume of emissions – aim to do so by 2050.
- India hasn’t submitted an updated nationally determined contribution (NDCs) with these commitments to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) yet.
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