By Dhurjati Mukherjee
Seas are rising, forests are burning and governments are still courting fossil fuel companies as if none of this is happening. As the Earth crossed a crucial, irreversible climate tipping point, the scale of destruction seems too vast and the climate-deniers too influential to foresee the looming environmental crisis. The future scenario appears grim but governments the world over are in no way seriously concerned about it. Conferences come and go, pledges taken and targets set but they are rarely adhered to.
Just a few days’ back, a new UN report assessing countries against climate action pledges stated that the current commitments would collectively reduce global carbon emissions by 11% by 2030 and about 17% by 2035 from the 2019 levels. Though this would be the first ever decline, the extent of the fall would be far short of the 60% reduction required to limit global warming by 1.50 Celsius. Even the 20 C limit would not be achieved.
The report, released just before the coming COP30 (which has started in Brazil from November 10) synthesised information from 64 countries’ new nationally determined contributions (NDCs) though the major emitters including China, India and the European Union have yet to submit their new targets.
The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere touched an all-time high in 2024, setting theground for Earth’s warming to aggravate further, according to another recent report by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). It blamed the CO2 surge from continued emissions from human activities and an upsurge from wildfires besides the waning carbon absorption capacity of land ecosystems and the ocean. “The heat trapped by CO2 and other greenhouse gases is turbo-charging our climate and leading to more extreme weather. Reducing emissions is therefore essential not just for our climate but also for our economic security”, the WMO Deputy Secretary General aptly pointed out. But it remains doubtful how many countries are serious in their approach in reducing emissions and adhering to environmental standards.
The report comes just before the COP30 climate summit being held in Belem, Brazil. But such conferences are held every year with lofty promises and long-term programmes, most of which are not kept by different nations. This report, apart from CO2, which had tripled since1960s,rose exponentially by 3,5 ppm in 2024, the largest ever since modern measurements started in 1957. Apart from this whose rise may be attributed to drier vegetation and forest fires, trends are similar for methane and nitrous oxide, the other critical GHG gases. Methane accounts for around 16% of the warming effect on the climate while nitrous oxide, the globally averaged concentration reached 338ppb in 2024, an increase of 24% over the pre-industrial levels.
As regards India is concerned, India reported the highest absolute increase in emissions – with an addition of 165 million tonnes of greenhouse gas during 2023-24 — followed by China, Russia, Indonesia and the US, as per the recently released UN Emissions Gap Report 2025. The report confirmed that India is caught in a climate justice trap. While the country’s low per capita emissions are a moral high ground, its rising total emissions, lack of proper reporting and non-submission of an NDC 3.0 put the country in a tight spot, observed experts
The traditional high emission industries, including aluminium, cement and pulp and paper will have to reduce the intensity of their greenhouse gas emissions to meet specific targets by 2026-27 compared to a 2023-24 baseline, as government notified rules for the country’s first legally binding emission reduction target for such carbon-heavy industries. The rules notified by the environment ministry (in early October) make it mandatory for 282 industrial units to reduce GHG emissions per unit of product beginning 2025-26. These are notified under the compliance mechanism of Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS) 2023. The highest number of industrial units (186) that will have to reduce GHG emission intensity within a specified time belong to the cement sector followed by pulp and paper (53), plants that use chlor-alkali process to extract certain chemicals (30) and aluminium plants (13).
Meanwhile, the air quality not just in Delhi but also in Kolkata has been deteriorating though the onset of winter is at least three weeks away. Obviously, the control of emissions is not up to the mark despite various regulations. It needs to be reiterated that the monitoring mechanism regarding environmental guidelines and laws remains much to be desired.
In India’s resolve to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070, the spotlight has largely been on renewable energy, carbon markets and industrial decarbonisation. As of now, it appears that the target set is quite challenging, but these are, no doubt, essential. However, there is another facet relating to public procurement, which incidentally is a significant contributor to the country’s emission footprint. Procurement decisions cannot ignore environmental factors, making future carbonisation costlier and more complex. This is specially important in areas of public transport, construction materials or the long-term performance of public buildings.
India is not a signatory to the WTO’s Agreement on Government Procurement and there is no unified national law either in this regard. Meanwhile, the EU has embedded environmental standards into its procurement system. Also, South Korea, way back in 2005, encourages agencies to set voluntary green procurement targets and rewarded high performers with fiscal incentives. In view of this, India could adopt a somewhat similar approach, at least in some sectors.
It has been estimated that a 15-20% cut in procurement linked emissions in line with international benchmarks could avoid 88-115 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent annually. Even a modest 1% improvement in procurement efficiency could save around Rs 70,000 crore. Experts have rightly suggested that sustainability criteria should be embedded in tender templates, compliance monitored and performance publicly reported. Thus, it is expected that in the coming years green procurement would be adhered to cut emissions, driving innovation and building a green economy.
As has been pointed out in earlier reports and in the present one, the updated pledges are not adequate enough to get the desirable of keeping global warming within 2 degrees Celsius thus, controlling the escalation of emissions is indeed quite challenging, considering areas such as transport, construction and industrial sectors are not monitored strictly. The lack of a strong governance mechanism, deep-rooted corruption of officials and an unholy nexus between political leaders and businessmen are obviously the reasons for slackness in controlling emissions. And it is the poor and marginalised sections who are most affected in various ways due to uncontrolled emissions and have to bear the brunt of the business houses who are all out to maximise profit without bothering for the community.
Why can’t the Indian government implement the ‘polluter pays’ principle, which is being talked and accepted the world over? Is it because the government does not want to be strict on business houses from whom political funding comes? This obviously cannot continue, when the looming environmental crisis is accentuating at a fast pace and affecting the lives of the people in different ways every year. It is time that the government changes its stand and acts tough by taking a strong stand to save the country from impending disaster and the looming environmental crisis.—INFA
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