IEEJ：November © IEEJ 2021
Special Bulletin
A Japanese Perspective on the International Energy Landscape (557)

November 4, 2021

India Seeking to Reach Carbon Neutrality by 2070
Ken Koyama, PhD
Chief Economist, Managing Director
The Institute of Energy Economics, JapanOn November 1, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that his country would
seek to reach carbon neutrality by 2070. He made the declaration in his address at the 26th
conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, known
as COP26, in Glasgow, the United Kingdom. India had been the only major greenhouse gas emitterthat had yet to announce a carbon neutrality goal. At last, the world’s third largest GHG emitter after
China and the United States officially announced the goal at COP26.
COP26, which opened on October 31 to discuss global warming prevention until
November 12, is an important meeting attracting global attention. It had been scheduled for last year
but has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the second half of 2020, majorcountries have announced their respective carbon neutrality goals for the middle of the 21st century
one after another, leading to a growing global wave of decarbonization initiatives. During the pastyear, the United States inaugurated the Biden administration that has positioned climate change
countermeasures as one of its top priorities and activated its climate change diplomacy in a manner
to accelerate the momentum for enhancing climate change initiatives. The United Kingdom thathosts COP26 is making national efforts to achieve the enhancement of climate change
countermeasures through the conference. In such a situation, Prime Minister Modi announced India’s
2070 carbon neutrality commitment.
Advanced economies including Japan, the United States and the European Union havealready declared their respective 2050 carbon neutrality goals. China, the world’s largest GHG
emitter, announced its 2060 carbon neutrality goal in September 2020. In a run-up to COP26,
Indonesia announced its 2060 carbon neutrality goal, followed by resource-rich countries such as
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Russia. On October 26, Australia came up with its 2050
carbon neutrality goal. In this sense, what attitude India would indicate at COP26 was attracting
global attention.
Some observers noted that India was reluctant to announce any carbon neutrality goal due
to its negative impacts on economic development and would refrain from declaring such a goal at
COP26. For such observers, Prime Minister Modi’s announcement of the goal might have come as asurprise move to overcome the reluctance and join other countries to seek carbon neutrality. As India
designated 2070 as the target year for carbon neutrality, some people have called on India to be more
ambitious to prevent climate change. However, India for its part might have carefully balanced
economic growth and development as its top priority with the commitment to enhancing climatechange countermeasures. In this sense, India’s commitment should be understood and given highratings.

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India’s participation in the carbon neutrality club will contribute to enhancing global
initiatives to realize carbon neutrality. Countries that have made carbon neutrality commitments will
have to seriously consider how to achieve the commitments. From the viewpoint of global interests,
it is desirable for the world to tackle the prevention of climate change under ambitious goals. Given
that carbon neutrality is a difficult challenge, however, how to tackle future difficulties may be agrave global issue.
While carbon neutrality commitment is the first step forward to taking measures to achieve
the goal, it may end up being a pie in the sky without specific pathways or roadmaps to the goal. At
present, only a small number of major economies have officially given comprehensive energy
scenarios or outlooks for carbon neutrality goals. Among them are the European Union, the United
Kingdom, France, Germany and China. Japan’s Strategic Energy Plan does not necessarily indicate
any pathway to the 2050 carbon neutrality goal. Even the United States known for its proactive
climate change diplomacy has not provided any comprehensive energy scenario for the 2030 goal of
cutting GHG emissions by 50-52%, as well as the 2050 carbon neutrality goal. As a matter of course,India, which has just declared the 2070 carbon neutrality goal, has not given any such scenario.
Even if comprehensive energy scenarios or outlooks for achieving carbon neutrality aredeveloped, how to achieve carbon neutrality may be left as a grave issue. Energy scenarios given by
the abovementioned economies commonly include (1) thorough energy efficiency enhancement, (2)substantial expansion of renewable energy and nuclear power generation to increase non-fossil
sources’ share of the energy mix, (3) promotion of electrification and decarbonization of electricitygeneration, (4) substantial expansion of hydrogen use and (5) introduction of negative emission
technologies such as forest sinks and direct air capture of CO2. The five common measures havevarious challenges and will not necessarily be easy for advanced economies as well as developing
ones to realize.
In a scenario for the maximum introduction of advanced technologies in the IEEJ Outlook
2022 published recently by the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan, global CO2 emissions in 2050
will still total 21.7 billion tons, though being 42% less than in a reference scenario for thecontinuation of current trends, falling far short of reaching zero and failing to be halved from thecurrent level. Particularly, emissions from heating demand and non-electric energy use in theindustry, transport and buildings sectors would be difficult to reduce. Then, it would be important tofurther promote electrification and expand hydrogen use in these sectors. In a circular carbon
economy scenario in the IEEJ Outlook, the world will promote the decarbonization of fossil fuels toexpand hydrogen use in these sectors and substantially reduce CO2 emissions without changing
fossil fuel consumption so much. It indicates a pragmatic pathway to reducing emissions
substantially while adequately using fossil fuels accounting for most of current global energy supply
and their supply systems and infrastructure.
Carbon neutrality initiatives may vary depending on national economic, technological andenergy resource endowment conditions, indicating that it would be important to take an inclusive
approach on various initiatives. As well as India that has just made a carbon neutrality commitment,
other developing economies that may follow suit will have to adopt their respective optimum
pathways to achieve the ultimate goal of carbon neutrality. This approach may be important for theentire world to pursue carbon neutrality as a global interest while preventing the escalation orradicalization of the north-south conflict as a potential constraint on climate change
countermeasures.
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As challenges and issues toward carbon neutrality, the IEEJ Outlook cited how to viewcarbon neutrality initiatives’ impacts on economic growth, whether the enhancement of suchinitiatives would generate gaps between advanced and developing economies and between variouslayers, the significance of stable electricity supply as well as energy security regarding traditional
fossil fuels, the presence of new risks or threats regarding electricity supply, stable supply of rareminerals indispensable for energy transition and the complication of energy security. Stable fossil
fuel supply during a long transition to carbon neutrality may also be a grave issue. Countries may
face various challenges when enhancing climate change countermeasures toward carbon neutrality toprotect global interests. Overcoming such challenges may also serve global interests.
Contact: report@tky.ieej.or.jp
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