REPORT / INTERNATIONAL NEWS

India’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rose by 58 per cent between 1994 and 2007 with the energy sector contributing over half of the emissions, a new government report said. India’s emissions are up from 1.2 billion tons in 1994 to 1.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2007. The country now ranks fifth globally in total GHG emissions, behind the United States, China, the European Union and Russia in 2007. The emissions of the United States and China are four times that of India in 2007.

India’s energy sector contributed 58 per cent of emissions followed by general industry with 22 per cent and 17 per cent by agriculture.

In November 2009, ahead of the international climate summit in Copenhagen, India announced it would reduce its GHG emission intensity — the amount of gases released per unit growth in national wealth — by 20—25 percent between 2005 and 2020. Emissions per unit of national wealth (or gross domestic product), a measure of GHG intensity, declined by 30 per cent during this period.

Ramesh said India would continue to improve its methods for emission estimates, bridge data gaps and develop country specific GHG emission estimate models.

In October 2009, India announced setting up a new climate research center and building climates satellites to improve data collection (see Weather station network to improve data collection in South Asia.

There are many ways to rank a country's carbon dioxide emissions. The big two in term so f gross amount are China and the US which combined is about 42% of the world's total. The European Union is next at around 14%. Russia, India, Germany and United Kingdom constitute about another 20%. The remainder of the world is about 24%.

In terms of energy intensity China leads again and is about twice as intensive as the US and India.