Minister of State for Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Shri Ashwini Kumar Choubey, in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, said that India, despite being home to more than one-sixth of humanity, contributed only about 4% of global cumulative greenhouse gas emissions between 1850 and 2019 and its per capita emissions are about a third of the world average.
Greenhouse gas emissions 2,838 million tons of CO2
The country’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2016 were approximately 2,838 million tons of CO2, of which agricultural emissions accounted for only 14%. Apart from ensuring food security at the domestic level, India continues to serve the rest of the world by exporting food.
India’s agricultural emissions must be considered in the context of being home to the world’s largest livestock population, largest milk producer, largest rice exporter and tenth largest wheat exporter. Despite its scale, Indian agriculture shows little or no incidence of large-scale industrial agriculture. In this light, the emissions of Indian agriculture should be considered significantly low.
It should also be noted that emissions from agriculture are survival emissions, emissions from production activities for essential commodities, and not luxury emissions, the accumulation of which is causing global warming damage to the world.
These emissions are mainly attributable to wasteful lifestyles and production and consumption patterns in the developed world. It can also be pointed out that if global annual per capita emissions were equal to India’s, there would be no climate crisis at all.
The written response noted that for developing countries, including India, agriculture is largely a locus of adaptation with co-benefits of mitigation. In this regard, the government conducts and supports research on greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector. Science and technology initiatives focused on include neem coated urea, slow release/coated fertilizers, soil test based fertilizer application, leaf color chart based N application, direct seeded rice, rice intensification system, aerobic rice , sprinkler irrigation and drip fertilization. These government initiatives are aimed at encouraging the rational use of all inputs to promote input cost savings for farmers, while providing favorable environmental and climate outcomes as co-benefits.
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