Thaindian News

New Delhi, May 11 (IANS) India’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions increased by 41.66 percent between 1994 and 2007 making it the fifth major emitter after the US, China, the European Union and Russia to contribute to global warming, said an environment ministry report released here Tuesday.
‘India’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions 2007′ report released by Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said that the country’s net GHG emissions in 2007 were 1.7 billion tonnes compared to 1.2 billion tonnes in 1994.

At 58 percent, the energy sector is the major contributor of GHG emissions followed by 22 percent and 17 percent respectively contributed by the industry and agriculture sector.

“Interestingly, the emissions of the US and China were almost four times that of India in 2007. It is also noteworthy that the emissions intensity of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined by more than 30 percent during the period 1994-2007,” Ramesh told reporters after releasing the report.

Emissions intensity is the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions produced to the GDP.

India is the first developing country to prepare its GHG inventory of 2007. The last data was prepared in 1994.

“India has the most updated emission inventory and we are not obliged by anyone to do so but the initiative was taken for domestic usage. We should now benchmark our emissions for 2007 with best practices in the world,” Ramesh said.

The environemnt minister said India needs to follow more aggressive domestic methods to check GHG emissions as this will benefit the country during negotiations at international forums.

“Around the ’80s India was ahead of world countries in using renewable sources of energy but by 2005 China and other countries overtook us,” he said.

India last year announced it would reduce by 2020 the emissions intensity by 20-25 percent of 2005.

The report was prepared by the Indian Network of Climate Change Assessment (INCCA), a group of 127 research institutions, tasked with undertaking research on the science of climate change and its impact on different sectors of the economy across various regions of India.

INCCA will bring out another assessment report in November this year about the impact of climate change on four sectors - water, agriculture, forests and health - in four climate hot spots - The Himalayas, northeast, Western Ghats and coastal India.