Thank you, India. Happy birthday, Ghandi.
By: Parker Nolan
Tags: India, Environment, Business, Climate Change, Paris Agreement

Today is the anniversary of Ghandi’s birth, more commonly known as his “birthday”. Ghandi is the man responsible for sparking the movement that helped India gain its independence from the UK, and the country is doing something big to celebrate:

India’s Environment Minister, Anil Dave, has announced that India will officially enter into the Paris Climate Agreement some time today, Sunday October 2nd. This news is a massive step towards helping to reduce the effects of climate change, as India is responsible for between 4 and 5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The Paris Climate Agreement was drafted with the goal of limiting global temperature change to under 2 degrees Celsius, and involves drastic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by countries. In order for the agreement to enter into law, it must be ratified by 55 or more countries. Currently, it has 60 signatories, and received a huge boost earlier this week: the world’s largest polluters, the U.S. and China, signed the agreement during a U.N. meeting. By signing the agreement, India is proposing a reduction in the intensity of their emissions by 33 percent. This would reduce their emissions intensity to just 35 percent, from a current rating of 68 percent.

The bad news

Unfortunately for the polar bears, the people of India, and planet earth, this target is to be met by the year 2030. Also, I almost forgot (silly me), that even though the agreement has enough signatories, the agreement cannot go into effect unless the countries taking part in it account for 55 percent or more of global emissions. With India’s signing, that number is only at 52 percent.

I hate to bring the cynical view into this, I really do, but if history has showed us anything, it is that governments are painfully slow when working to effect change regarding the environment. So it is very possible that if the agreement can achieve enough signatures, by the year 2030 we will still not experience the emissions reductions promised to us.

But there is so much good that can still come from this.

Don’t worry, polar bear. There may be hope yet.

The good news

The Paris climate accord is a historic agreement. By signing it, countries and their leaders are acknowledging that climate change is, at least partially, a product of human action. If the timetables are kept (you never know, it could happen; and I truly hope it does), we could all be breathing much cleaner air and experiencing lessened climate change by the year 2030.

In fact, even if every country currently signed to the agreement only reduced their emissions by five percent by the year 2030, do you know how much cleaner our air would be? Based on emissions data from 2011, the world would have 2,638,171.6623 kilo tonnes of pollutants removed from the air.

That’s 2,638,171,662.30 tonnes, or 5,816,172,927,026.97 pounds. That’s the equivalent of taking EIGHT HUNDRED AND EIGHTY MILLION HUMMERS worth of pollution out of our environment.

Almost 880 million Hummers worth of pollution. Can you even imagine 880 million Hummers?

That potential improvement is astonishing, and should give you some hope for the world.

I haven’t even mentioned the financial ramifications on Indian companies as a result of India’s signing of the agreement. Well, essentially, there won’t be much financial impact on companies. India has asked that the other developed countries provide financial support for India as well as other countries to pay for the reduction efforts. Companies like Tata Steel, the Indian Oil Corporation, etc., will all be forced, by law, to improve their manufacturing and production capabilities in order to reduce emissions.

Car makers will be mandated to improve the technology of their vehicles, increase mileage, reduce pollutants from their vehicles, and maybe even introduce hybrid or electric cars. All of this seems fairly expensive, until you consider that a lot of it will most likely be funded by India, as they are seeking financial aid to make their efforts successful. Also, any short term financial losses taken by any companies will pay off in the long term as they will have safer and more efficient production facilities, better technology, and possibly some product diversification (in the case of automakers).

By signing this agreement, India is not only bringing the world even closer to drastic environmental improvement, they are also benefiting Indian companies. Even though there will be cost associated with the emissions reductions, they will pay out in the long term, both for the companies and the well-being of the human race.

Happy birthday, Ghandi.