India must bank majorly upon carbon sinks in the form of oceans, land mass and forests

The much-awaited Intergovernmental Panel Report on Climate Change was released on August 9, 2021. The sixth assessment report has dwelt on how the climate is changing the planet and what this means for the temperature levels of today and tomorrow. The report also highlighted the dubious fact about humanity that it took man just 120 years to irretrievably alter earth’s atmosphere for the worse. The report warns that unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, surface temperatures will cross 2 degrees Celsius by the middle of the century. The rapidly spiralling global warming has already ensured that glacial retreat has picked up pace since the 1950s and the synchronous retreat of the glaciers is today considered unprecedented in the past 2,500 years. Given these conditions, environmental scientists are predicting with fair confidence that the Arctic would end up being sea-ice free at least once before 2050. The increase in global temperature also mirrors the same course as the emission of greenhouse gases. The IPCC report observes that since 2011 greenhouse gases have continued to increase in the atmosphere, reaching an annual average of 410 parts per million for carbon dioxide (CO2), 1866 parts per billion for methane (CH4), and 332 parts per billion for nitrous oxide (N2O) in 2019. In April 2021 the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere reached a head as it breached a monthly level of 416 parts per million, the highest that they have been in two million years. The IPCC report expects that the world will also suffer from enormous calamities due to the rise in sea levels by about 0.7 meters or about 2 feet. Experts also concur that unless urgent measures to limit the GHG emissions are not applied, the global warming may rapidly deplete the ice sheets resulting in a calamitous increase in sea levels by as much as 7 feet. The rise in temperature levels can prove to be the tipping point after which the consequent cascading effects will render the situation beyond remedy.

The IPCC report is being widely considered to be a “call for action”. The criticality of the situation must not be lost on India too which has a huge reliance on coal to generate power which in turn contributes heavily to global warming and pollution. As per estimates, India is the third highest Co2 annual polluter in the world. Given this, India must invest in remedial measures so that the nation does its bit to pull back the world from an apocalyptic environmental disaster. India must bank majorly upon carbon sinks in the form of oceans, land mass, and forests as put together they have the ability to absorb over half of the greenhouse gas emissions generated. Apart from this India, like USA and China, will also have to effectively plan and implement its own "net zero" plan. Initiatives such as this will help put India on the global stage as well. Yet another area, India must catch up with the world is the varied and sustainable application of renewable energy. The more India applies renewable energy to its daily life the more fossil fuels would be discouraged and naturally drive down GHG emissions and therefore reduce the carbon foot print. It is disconcerting that at a time when the world automobile sector has moved on to hybrid and wholly electric powered technologies, Indian auto market is still launching fossil fuel-powered models. This is mainly because the support infrastructure for electric and hybrid vehicles is still under-developed. This is the gap that the government must plug in order to ensure that the grim predictions of the IPCC report donot actually come true.

(The writer is an environmental journalist. The views expressed are personal.)