Global GDP Growth 2007-2010
6.3 Institutional arrangements
6.3.2 India steps up its institutional response
Parties, but serving in their own capacity and elected by the COP; nine members would be nominated by Annex I parties and eleven members from non-Annex 1 parties (UNFCCC, 2011:
1/CP.16 Appendix IV). This slight weighting in favour of NA1 countries was intended to ensure that concerns of developing countries were well represented.
By the end of this phase the institutional arrangements had extended beyond those arrangements facilitative of the viewpoints of developed countries and focused on mitigation, to include institutions crucial from the vantage point of developing countries – technology and finance. While that indicated progress, the material resources were still vastly inadequate to the task of supporting developing countries in their efforts to respond to climate change.
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In 2007 and 2008 (before and after the Bali COP), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a number of institutional decisions that ultimately had a bearing on the country’s stance on climate change. In 2007 the incumbent Minister of Environment, A Raja, resigned, and instead of appointing another minister, the Prime Minister’s Office took charge of the MoEF; Singh also created a high-level body called the PM’s (Advisory) Council on Climate Change (PMCCC). After Bali, in January 2008, the PM appointed senior diplomat, Ambassador Shyam Saran, as his Special Envoy and Chief Negotiator on Climate Change in recognition of the need for high-level coordination and steering of the Indian response to climate change. These institutional changes are captured in Figure 46 below and show an obvious escalation of institutionalisation in comparison to Figure 45 above.
Figure 46: Institutions in India’s domestic climate change governance 2007-200937 Source: Dubash & Joseph (2015a)
While apparently important institutional responses due to their association with the PMO, neither the PMCCC nor the Office of the Special Envoy was assigned permanent staff, and had to rely instead on ad hoc assistance from the PMO and external experts, undermining their ability to play a
37 Note that the Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources (MNES) was renamed the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) in 2006 (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, 2016).
long-term strategic role (Dubash & Joseph, 2015b). The Office of the Special Envoy was instrumental in helping to bring the NAPCC process to fruition; thus, by playing a role at both the national and international levels, it began to compete with the MEA and the MoEF for authority over the issue area, ultimately leading to the dissolution of the Office in 2010, when Minister Ramesh consolidated the authority of the MOEF over the issue (Dubash & Joseph, 2015b).
In addition to the PMCCC, and not shown on Figure 46, two other institutions (more broadly interpreted) were established by the Government of India in response to the challenges posed by climate change: the “Inter-Ministerial and Inter-agency Consultative Mechanism” and the “Expert Committee on Impacts of Climate Change” in 2007 (Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2012). As the nodal ministry for Climate Change, the MOEF organised the Inter-Ministerial and Inter-Agency Consultative Mechanism to assist them in the preparation and articulation of policies and strategies. Composed of nationally recognised experts, the consultative mechanism was divided into political, modelling and (later) forest sub-groups (Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2012).
The Expert Committee on Impacts of Climate Change was tasked with studying the potential impacts of climate change on India and identifying measures with which to address India’s assessed vulnerabilities. Experts were drawn from government departments and ministries, as well as from academia and various fields of science (Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2012). The inclusion of experts in advisory capacities signalled an acknowledgment that the science required expertise beyond that employed by government. Certainly the growing pressure at international level for developing countries to be involved in mitigating efforts, in combination with the increasing certainty of the impacts of climate change on India, was an important driver of these institutional responses by the Government of India.
The decision to compile a list of India’s actions addressing climate change was taken at the first meeting of the PMCCC in July 2007. A list of existing adaptation and mitigation actions is found in section two of the technical document of the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) (Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change, 2009: 17–20). The NAPCC also specified measures that promoted India’s developmental objectives while simultaneously delivering climate change – related “co-benefits” in the form of adaptation and mitigation objectives (Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change, 2009: 13). The NAPCC was the Indian government’s response to the material challenges – both developmental and climate related – that it faced.
The NAPCC was released in late June 2008 with an outline of India’s planned approach to the challenges posed by climate change. The future objectives were formulated into the eight missions seen in Figure 47 below and outlined in the following paragraphs.
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The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) would be responsible for increasing Solar Thermal and Solar Photovoltaic generation as well as taking the lead in deploying solar technologies around the country. It was also tasked with the establishment of at least 1GW of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) generation capacity before the end of the 12th Five Year Plan in 2017 (Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change, 2009). Fundamentally it was tasked with supporting and growing the nascent solar industry in order to increase the share of solar in the overall energy mix (Ministry of Environment and
Forests, 2012).
The National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency (NMEEE) was to build on the work already in progress under the Bureau of Energy Efficiency and the Ministry of Power (Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2010). Four new measures were to be instituted that would encourage energy consumption decreases in large energy-consuming industries. These were “(i) Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT), (ii) Market Transformation, (iii) Energy Efficiency Financing Platform, and (iv) Framework For Energy Efficient Economic Development”
(Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2012). In particular, PAT was designed to cover 700 energy intensive industrial sites and power stations that accounted for more than 50% of the fossil fuel used in India. It set energy efficiency targets and created tradable Energy Savings Certificates for those units exceeding their efficiency target to sell on other units not in compliance. It was hoped that PAT would help reduce CO2 emissions by 25 million tons per year by 2014-15 (Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2010).
On the agenda of the National Mission on Sustainable Habitat (NMSH) was the promotion of energy efficiency in residential and commercial
Figure 47: The 8 National Missions of the NAPCC Source: Own compilation based on Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change (2009).
buildings, improved urban planning, solid-waste management and recycling and the promotion of the use of public transport in the urban areas (Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2010). The National Water Mission was mandated to produce a 20% improvement in water-use efficiency through the creation of regulatory and pricing mechanisms (Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change, 2009). A related mission was the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem, which was tasked with managing the glacier and mountain eco-systems – an important source of water for Gangetic India (Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change, 2009). The Green India Mission (GIM) was tasked with increasing the country’s carbon sinks by doubling the afforested areas within ten years to 20 million hectares, thereby potentially producing a carbon- sequestration effect of 43 million tons CO2I annually (Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2010). In addition the GIM was to improve the resilience of forests and ecosystems while actively attempting to secure participation of local forest communities (Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change, 2009). By June 2010 the GIM had still not been launched (Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2010).
The aim of the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) was to identify or develop strategies to make Indian agriculture more resilient to the vagaries brought about by climate changes. Essentially an adaptation mission, it encouraged the integration of traditional bodies of knowledge and cutting-edge technologies and advances (Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change, 2009). Related to this ethos of learning and sharing, the National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change was tasked with leveraging the best research and researchers available in support of making information available about the challenges and responses to climate change. To this end it would fund strategic socio-economic research, including research in the impacts of climate change on health, demographics, migration and livelihoods (Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change, 2009).
In the lead-up to the Copenhagen COP in 2009, the Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment (INCCA) was established. This was a network of 127 research institutions (and 228 scientists) distributed countrywide and tasked with researching the science of climate change. Crucial tasks included, first, producing biennial assessments of GHG emissions (inventories) and of the variable impacts on the different sectors in the country and, second, building capacity in the management of risks and opportunities derived from climate change (Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment, 2007). The first of the GHG inventories produced by the INCCA was for the year 2007 (prior to that only 1994 figures were available) and was released in 2010 (Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2010). By increasing the capacity of Indian science “in terms of the “3 Ms” –
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Measurement, Modelling, and Monitoring” – the network would potentially be able to fulfil its task of providing support to decision makers (Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2012).
In January 2010, PM Manmohan Singh established an ad hoc 26-member panel to devise a low- carbon strategy for India, called the “Expert Group on Low Carbon Strategies for Inclusive Growth”
(LCEG). The recommendations of this Group were intended as inputs to the 12th FYP (2012-2017).
The Group produced an interim report in 2011 and a final report in 2014 – these will therefore be discussed in next chapter covering the fourth phase (2011-2015). The 2010 budget introduced a Clean Energy Cess (tax) of Rs50 (+/- US$1) per tonne on raw coal, raw lignite or raw peat extracted from domestic coal mines, or on any form (raw or washed) of imported coal (Ministry of Finance, 2010a). This cess came into effect on the 1st of July 2010 with a penalty of up to (Indian Rupees) INR10 000 for any contravention (Ministry of Finance, 2010b). It was anticipated that the tax would raise approximately US$ 500 million in the 2010-2011 financial year, which would be used to endow a National Clean Energy Fund that would support research and innovative projects in clean-energy technologies as well as environmental-remediation programmes (Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2010). By 2011, the Ministry of Finance had created a “Climate Change Finance Unit”
(CCFU). This Unit was intended to focus on representing India in discussions establishing the GCF, and in international finance negotiations more generally (Dubash & Joseph, 2015b): an indication of a national-level institutional response to potential material resources being provided at the international level and to the creation of institutions (GCF) at international level.
What is apparent in the formulation of the NAPCC’s National Missions is that it gives effect to the priorities of a developing country still addressing a range of serious developmental deficits, from the consequences of rapid urbanisation and waste disposal, to water, food and energy access.
These deficits were real constraining factors affecting India’s vision of itself as an emerging power, as they told a different story to the popular one of India’s tremendous growth. What is also apparent is that the statement of intent in the form of the publication of the NAPCC’s missions was not always followed by expeditious implementation. As apparent in Table 6 below, while all but one mission was approved by the PMCCC in this phase, only two were approved by Cabinet and of those two only the National Solar Mission was officially launched before the end of this phase.
Significantly, the PM’s Special Envoy on Climate Change played a pivotal role in the promotion and support of three of the missions: the National Solar Mission, the National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency and the National Himalayan Mission (Dubash & Joseph, 2015b). Another factor that likely contributed to the more accelerated implementation of the NSM and the NMEEE was the nature of their primary objective, namely, the creation of new policy environments: the NSM to
encourage solar energy investment and the NMEEE to create a mechanism for tradable Energy Savings Certificates (Dubash & Joseph, 2015b). Critiques levelled at the NAPCC included that many of the missions lacked clear focus in the absence of a long-term frame, that there was little integration between the missions and that it was unclear whether the Plan prioritised domestic or international objectives (Byravan & Rajan, 2012). Furthermore civil society criticised the government for not consulting broadly, for failing to wrestle with many of the most important sources of emissions and for placing overdue emphasis on growth at the expense of the natural environment on which a majority of predominantly poor people depended for existence (Thakkar, 2009).
Table 6: Key information of the NAPCC’s missions
Source: Targets information from Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change, (2009) (column “A”); Information in columns “B” & “C” from Dubash & Joseph, (2015b). Budgetary information in column “D” from Ministry of Environment Forests and Climate Change, (2014). A * indicates an assessed, but not approved/allocated, amount.
A B C D
Mission Main Target/Aim Approved
by PMCCC
Approved by Cabinet
Budgetary allocation for the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017) Jawaharlal Nehru National
Solar Mission
20,000 MW of solar
power by 2020 08/2009 19/11/2009 INR 8,795 crore (US$ 1.4 billion) National Mission for Enhanced
Energy Efficiency 10, 000 MW by 2012 24/08/2009 24/06/2010 INR 190 crore*
(US$ 31 million)
National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change
Fund research into climate change impacts & response
13/10/2009 INR 2,500 crore*
(US$ 403 million)
National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem
Observation &
monitoring network 26/10/2009 28/02/2014 INR 500 crore (US$ 81 million)
National Water Mission 20% improvement in
water use efficiency 28/05/2010 6/04/2011 INR 196 crore (US$ 31.6 million)
National Mission on Sustainable Habitat
Energy efficiency in buildings, waste management, modal shift in transport
18/06/2010 INR 950 crore*
(US$ 153 million)
National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture
Mainstream adaptation and mitigation strategies
23/09/2010 INR 13,034 crore
(US$ 2.1 billion)
Green India Mission Expand India’ forest
cover from 23% - 33% 22/02/ 2011 20/02/2014 INR13,000 crore (US$ 2.1 billion)
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