COP 26

India at COP 26

Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi unequivocally summarised the revised the country’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) pivoted around the following five announcements at COP 26 held at Glasgow in November 2021:

• First- India will take its non-fossil energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030.
• Second- India will meet 50 percent of its energy requirements from renewable energy by 2030.
• Third- India will reduce the total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes from now till 2030.
• Fourth- By 2030, India will reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by more than 45 percent.

• And fifth- by the year 2070, India will achieve the target of Net Zero.

These ambitious targets will certainly bring along with them a robust Climate Change Law in India sooner than later which will further incentivise the Renewable Energy Interventions particularly those that uplift Sustainable Development Goals that the world is chasing to accomplish by 2030. Income from carbon trading is also expected to be infused with further tax reforms as a clear incentive towards Climate Change Mitigation.

Paris Agreement clearly highlights the need to broad base and democratize carbon markets so that they are accessible to a larger set of stakeholders and eventually become an efficient and cost effective tool to mitigate climate change- something that Government of India is seriously contemplating by the way of a Climate Change Law.