Atmospheric Control
This April, France’s embassy in Delhi hosted the country’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian. Prakash Javadekar, India’s environment minister at the time, was in attendance, and in no mood to make friends. “The world is suffering,” he said. “India is suffering because of the actions of others. We cannot just forget it and we will not allow anybody to forget it.”
Javadekar was talking about climate change, and how India—like the rest of the developing world—has contributed very little to a crisis that is almost entirely of the developed world’s making. The immediate cause of his diatribe was a growing crescendo in the West that India commit to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by mid century—something that would have dramatic implications for the country’s economic growth. Javadekar’s position was one that India has long held at global climate negotiations—and that it is likely to continue with this November in Glasgow at the United Nations’ Conference of Parties, or COP 26, where the pressure will again be high to commit to a date for net-zero emissions.
On paper, a country can achieve net-zero by removing from the atmosphere the same amount of greenhouse gases it emits in a year. In reality, at least for now, this is technologically and financially unfeasible, especially on the scale required for a country the size of India. Reaching net-zero in India will boil down to cutting emissions close to nil. Even if, theoretically, India were to transition entirely to renewable sources for its energy needs, this would still not suffice
