Green Up Newsletter 9: NAPCC

Aprajita Singh on India’s Climate Action Plans

India has had a serious National Action Plan for Climate Change since 2008. Aprajita Singh explains its basic contours in this video.

The challenge, as always, is the slip betwixt cup and lip, i.e., the difference between what was promised and what is actually happening. One way that dilemma manifests - and this will be familiar to many Indians - is the ongoing tension between ‘climate’ and ‘development.’

The Manmohan Singh government’s promise in the NAPCC was that India’s emission intensity will never reach that of the developed countries, which is a problematic commitment. In 2018, India was the third-largest emitter of carbon (2.65 GT), about half that of the US and a fourth of China, but our emissions intensity at 1.96 T/person was about an eighth of the US (16.56T). If we were to emit at US levels per capita, we would be the biggest emitter in the world in aggregate. Not where we want to be.

Incidentally, even if we adopt the ‘growth is good’ model, the numbers show that India’s per capita GDP in PPP terms is around $7000, while the US is about ten times bigger at $65,000 (contrast that with the eight times factor for per capita emissions, but as high as half the US levels for aggregate emissions). So there’s plenty of room for us to become more efficient at burning carbon to produce a dollar of growth. China is less efficient than we are - about 2.5 times bigger per capita GDP in PPP terms and 3.5 times more per capita emissions. They have been burning more carbon to get ahead. Most of the first world is more efficient than us; which makes sense since they produce high value added goods that don’t take as much carbon to produce per capita - designing iPhones produces more profit per unit than assembling the same iPhone. There’s downside to that argument though: if our wants multiply with increasing efficiency, we may end up burning more fossil fuels in aggregate, even if it’s more efficient, a puzzle known as Jevon’s paradox.

Wicked Sprint on Recasting the Fertilizer Subsidy

Image: Wicked Sprint 2020

The reduction of India’s carbon emissions will depend on the nature of economic growth, a major aspect of which is related to the production of food. India’s land and food production depend heavily on chemical fertilizers, whether environmentalists like it or not. The fertilizer subsidy budget of the government currently focuses on Urea, which is primarily Nitrogenous. Fertilizers that depend on Phosphates and Potassium are not as affordable or commonly used, a subsidy towards these will diversify the nutrients currently being applied to the soil.

A discussion at the recent Wicked Sprint organized by BKS, Socratus and associated organizations lead to the evolution of a proposal for a ‘Nutrient Based Subsidy.’ This would reduce the subsidy on Urea, making it a little more expensive, but it would also bring prices down for Phosphates and Potassium based products. The transition to organic fertilizers will be slow and based on the logic that food production must remain high enough to feed the nation and to maintain self-sufficiency at various levels. In this paradigm, while farmers would prefer that subsidies remain with their preferred fertilizer, a card to determine the land quality and therefore the appropriate fertilizer are being considered. The move towards non-Urea based fertilizers would render Urea more expensive, something which government bodies have avoided as it is directly related to farmer outrage and protests. The NBS or Nutrient Based Subsidy has the potential to open up the possibility of organic fertilizers, eventually weaning agriculture away from Nitrogen focused fertilizers. See more here.

The fertilizer industry is interlinked with and it depends on factors such as water levels, contamination of soils, degradation, and more. Further, the lot of the farmer considered, medium level farmers depend heavily on Nitrogenous fertilizers, especially since the land becomes dependent on them. Reducing this dependency, however, can have significant effects on climate change. The lifecycle emissions from Urea amount to 119 MT/year, i.e., around 4.5% of India’s aggregate emissions. Quite substantial! Reductions in emissions from Nitrogen based fertilizers would lead to a healthier climate, read more here.

In summary, agriculture is a major contributor to climate change, and transitioning away from a fertilizer economy is one large step towards a carbon-friendly future and as an added benefit, soil that retains its health without adding chemical fertilizers is better for all of us.

Concluding Image of ideas shared at the Wicked Sprint, 2020.