India, backed by other developing countries, has blocked an attempt by rich countries to target all 20 top carbon dioxide producers during discussions on a “mitigation work programme” at the ongoing UN climate summit in Egypt, sources said on Monday. During the first week of climate talks, developed countries wanted all 20 biggest emitters, including India and China, to discuss intensive emission reductions, rather than just rich countries historically responsible for climate change, they said.
Among the top 20 emitters are developing countries, including India, which are not responsible for the warming that has already occurred. According to sources, India pushed back the attempt with the support of like-minded developing countries, including China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan. “The MWP should not lead to the reopening of the Paris Agreement”, which clearly states that countries’ climate commitments must be determined at the national level based on circumstances, India and other developing countries said.
Last year at COP26 in Glasgow, parties agreed that a 45 percent reduction in global CO2 emissions by 2030 (compared to 2010 levels) is needed to limit the increase in average global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Accordingly, they agreed to establish a Mitigation Work Program (MWP) to “rapidly increase mitigation ambition and implementation”. Mitigation means reducing emissions, ambition means setting stronger targets and implementation means meeting new and existing targets.
Coming into COP27, developing countries expressed concern that rich countries would pressure them through the MWP to revise their climate targets without increasing the supply of technology and finance. Ahead of COP27, India said the MWP cannot “change the target positions” set by the Paris Agreement. “Best practices, new technologies and new modes of cooperation for technology transfer and capacity building can be fruitfully discussed in the mitigation work programme,” the Union Environment Ministry said.
Analysis by Carbon Brief shows that the US has emitted more than 509 Gt of CO2 since 1850 and is responsible for the largest share of historical emissions, with around 20 percent of global total emissions. China is a relative distant at 11 percent, followed by Russia (7 percent). India ranks seventh with 3.4 percent of the cumulative total. The Earth’s global surface temperature has increased by approximately 1.15 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial average (1850-1900) and closely related to the CO2 released into the atmosphere since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Much damage was already done before 1990, when economies like India started to develop.
According to the “Global Carbon Budget Report 2022”, more than half of the world’s CO2 emissions in 2021 came from three places – China (31 percent), the US (14 percent) and the European Union (8 percent). In fourth place, India accounted for 7 percent of global CO2 emissions. However, at 2.4 t CO2e (tons of carbon dioxide equivalent), India’s greenhouse gas emissions are well below the global average of 6.3 t CO2e, according to a report released by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) last month. US per capita emissions (14 t CO2e) are well above the global average, followed by Russia (13 t CO2e), China (9.7 t CO2e), Brazil and Indonesia (each about 7.5 t CO2e) and the European Union (7 .2 t CO2e).
