Environment: India submitted its third biennial update report (BUR-III) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on February 20th, 2021. In the report, it declared that the nation’s emission intensity (per unit of GDP) had reduced by 24 percent between 2005 and 2016 and that it was “on track to meet its voluntary declaration to reduce the emission intensity by 20-25 percent from 2005 levels by 2020”.
Emission intensity refers to the aggregate emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) measured in carbon dioxide equivalent and divided by the country’s GDP.
India’s BUR-III stated that the nation had emitted 2.8 billion tonnes of GHG, with the energy sector alone accounting for 75 percent of the total emissions. Currently, India is fourth by way of overall GHG emissions with China, USA, and EU+UK being the top three.
An analysis of India’s three BURs throws up some key insights: The share of the agriculture sector in the country’s total emission has been declining since 2010. The energy sector’s share however has been rising, and the contribution of the manufacturing and waste sectors to total emissions has stayed constant.
Emissions in agriculture are largely on account of methane—due to livestock rearing and paddy cultivation, and nitrous oxide through the use of fertilisers. The decline in agricultural emissions since 2010 has been driven primarily by the judicious use of fertiliser, diversification of crops, and better manure management.
In the energy sector, electrical energy manufacturing was the largest supplier of GHGs, accounting for about 40 percent of the nationwide emissions in 2016. Manufacturing and construction collectively emitted over 18 percent of emissions. “Coal will, however, continue to be an integral part of India’s energy requirements, both for electricity generation and non-electricity uses, and remains essential for India’s developmental needs and energy security,” according to the BUR-III.
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