U.S. climate envoy John Kerry visited New Delhi last week to discuss India’s climate mitigation efforts and how the United States can assist.

Kerry’s visit launched several initiatives, including a new bilateral climate action and finance mobilization dialogue (CAFMD).

Climate Action and Finance Mobilization Dialogue (CAFMD) is mainly aimed at helping India achieve its 450 gigawatts (GW) renewable energy target.


But there was nothing on how India plans to slash its carbon emissions to the required level.

While world's two largest emitters of carbon China and US have pledged to become carbon neutral or achieve net zero emissions by 2060 and 2050 respectively. India, the third largest emitter is yet to decide on the timeline for carbon neutrality.

Net zero is the state in which a country’s greenhouse emissions are removed from the atmosphere by carbon absorption or sequestration. (This is most hotly debated proposal for CoP 26 as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as achieving net zero by 2050 was a must to keep global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, to pre-industrial level by end of 2100)

India has so far committed to reducing the emission intensity of its GDP by 33-35% by 2030 and 175 GW renewable energy capacity by 2030 under Paris Agreement.

There is renewed pressure on India to enhance its renewable commitment under the Paris deal to 450 GW by 2030 and phase out coal.

India can achieve ‘net zero’ carbon emissions by 2065-70 as its greenhouse emissions will peak by 2035 and if it caps coal usage in the next 10 years, says a new study co-authored by former vice-chairman of the erstwhile Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia. This will also depend on rich countries doubling climate finance to US $200 billion per year in next few years.

To achieve the net zero target, the paper said, India needs short-term decarbonisation targets along with climate action plans for the next three decades.

IPCC report released in August has cautioned India enough to raise it's climate commitments and help in achieving Paris climate goals as India remains central to the ongoing discussions on climate change and forthcoming COP26.