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overall growth in global CO2 emissions in 2021. Adaption
Total energy-related emissions rose by 6% to The wider picture is that emissions in Asia are
36.3bn tonnes in 2021, with coal contributing driving climate change, and that emissions
15.3bn tonnes, a record. reduction worldwide in too slow, but more cru-
Coal-fired generation reached an all-time cially, not in the right places. China and India,
high in India, jumping 13% above its 2020 the world’s largest and third-largest emitters,
level, meaning that CO2 emissions rebounded need to reduce emissions.
strongly in 2021 to rise above 2019 levels. This Also, more investment is needed in climate
was partly because the growth of renewables adaption, which means investing in dealing
slowed to one-third of the average rate seen over with the current effects of climate change, such
the previous five years. as drought, deforestation and high temperatures.
The IEA said that CO2 emissions had At COP26, the developed world promised to
rebounded less sharply in advanced econo- keep annual climate financing up to $100bn per
mies in 2021 than in the developing world, even year. But more is needed in Africa and Asia.
though global economic output in advanced Indeed, the IPCC warned in March that
economies recovered to pre-pandemic levels in the effects of global warming are already wide-
2021, but signalled a more permanent trajectory spread, and that some are now irreversible.
of structural decline. Global warming since the pre-industrial era
In other words, if China and India are now stood at 1.1°C, said the IPPC, and that 3.3bn
removed from the equation, then global emis- people were now at risk to changes in the climate.
sions actually are falling, meaning that there has The current heatwaves in India, with 1.4bn
been significant progress towards net zero in people, is a key example of this. The report
recent years. said that more land will become uninhabitable
However, if China is included, then any gains because of rising, heating and acidifying seas,
in recent years are cancelled, with, for example, salty soils and higher air temperatures, which
new Chinese coal generation actually outpacing will punish small islands in particular.
coal closures in the rest of the word. Among other dangers, staple crop produc-
India, which at the COP26 conference made tion will become impossible in places such as
a dramatic last-minute intervention to have coal the tropics, threatening the world’s food security.
phase out changed to coal phase down in the There could be many “multiple breadbasket fail-
conference’s final declarations, also has to make ures” if global warming goes past 1.5°C.
its own efforts to accelerate emissions reduction. This means that global warming could cause
India said at COP26 that it would achieve mass famine and movements of people, leading
carbon neutrality by 2070, although it refused to to political destabilisation and potentially war in
set a date for peak emissions. It did say it would Asia and Africa, as countries could close their
build 500 GW of non-fossil capacity by 2030 border to mass movements of millions of people
and that renewables would account for 50% of from famine-hit areas.
energy by 2030. These threats mean that current green invest-
If more climate events like the current heat- ment is being made in the wrong place. Accord-
wave are to be avoided, then it is India itself, ing to the IPCC, the two most crucial ways of
along with the other emissions giant, China, combating climate change are adaptation, which
that must make effective and sudden changes if involves reducing climate risk, and mitigation,
the two countries are to keep pace with global which is reducing emissions.
dynamics. It warned that far more investment in adapta-
India has also been a leading critic of the tion measures was needed, with 80% of climate
West’s historic record on emissions, saying that financing now focused on mitigation.
European and US industrialisation has caused “Any further delay in concerted anticipa-
the current crisis, rather than current emissions tory global action on adaptation and mitigation
from the developing world. will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of
Prime Narendra Modi has urged the devel- opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable
oped world to provide $1 trillion of climate future for all.”
finance to the world’s poorer nations in a bid to India’s current temperature and possible
achieve climate justice, calling on rich countries migration acts as a bellwether of how emissions
to provide the finance needed to the energy tran- reductions efforts, the current Russian fossil fuel
sition in the global south. embargo and global investment in emissions
India has long argued that nations that indus- reduction and adaption are all interconnected.
trialised earlier should bear a much greater share More and wiser investment in adaption,
of the burden of decarbonisation, as they have emissions reduction and renewable energy is
contributed far more to emissions over time. needed urgently to prevent a migration catastro-
This contrasts with OECD members’ failure so phe of the kind threatened in India. ™
far to provide $100bn per year of climate financ-
ing, as already promised.

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