The head of India’s parliamentary panel on finance has said that the country would need an additional investment of up to $100 billion annually to meet its 2070 net-zero carbon emissions goal.
Chaired by Jayant Sinha, the panel is tasked with studying and ascertaining the requirements for sustainable growth, particularly for climate adaptation and mitigation, in India.
“The incremental investment required in India, above and beyond what we are already doing, to be on a net zero trajectory of 2070, is $50-100 billion a year,” Sinha was quoted to have said by reporters from Reuters.
Although companies in India are already investing $65 billion-$100 billion to cut carbon emissions from existing and new capacities, Sinha said that might have to double for India to be on a net zero trajectory.
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Whereas India is the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the United States, data from Our World in Data shows the country has a lower ranking in per capita emissions.
Sinha believes additional investments will fund infrastructure that supports the third largest Asian economy’s “green transition”, including boosting green hydrogen capacity, changing the existing stock of internal combustion engines, and building charging stations.
Under the Paris Agreement, which holds the world to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, all countries are required to submit reports showing how they will get there.
At the COP27 summit in Egypt in 2022, India laid out steps it will take to achieve the net zero target.
India has called on rich countries to live up to their promise of providing $100 billion in annual climate finance to developing nations.
The parliamentary panel has also held discussions with various regulators, including the Reserve Bank of India and the Securities and Exchange Board of India, among others, to expand their capacity and capabilities as the country’s economy expands, Sinha added.
Story was adapted from Reuters.
