Lok Sabha Question No. 1313 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2022-07-25
Subject: Green House Gas Emissions
Ministry: ENVIRONMENT,  FORESTS AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Asked by: Manickam Tagore B

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

## MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT, FOREST AND CLIMATE CHANGE

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1313

TO BE ANSWERED ON 25.07.2022

## Green House Gas Emissions

## 1313. SHRI MANICKAM TAGORE B:

Will the Minister of ENVIRONMENT, FOREST AND CLIMATE CHANGE be pleased to state:

- (a) Whether it  is  a  fact  that  India  was  placed  at  the  last  on  a  list  of  180  countries  on managing climate change, environmental health, and ecosystem vitality on the report prepared  by  researchers  at  the  Yale  and  Columbia  Universities,  if  so  the  details thereof;
- (b) whether it is a fact that it was stated in the said report that India scored low across a range  of  issues  with  deteriorating  air  quality  and  rapidly  rising  greenhouse  gas emission posing major challenges;
- (c) Whether it is a fact that government has rejected it by saying that the use of biased metrics and biased weights caused India's low rank as it did not take into account for the fact that India had one of the lowest emission trajectories; and
- (d) if so the details thereof.

## ANSWER

## MINISTER  OF  STATE  IN  THE  MINISTRY  OF  ENVIRONMENT,  FOREST  AND CLIMATE CHANGE

(SHRI ASHWINI KUMAR CHOUBEY)

(a) to (d) The report on Environmental Performance Index 2022prepared byresearchers at  Yale  University  and  Columbia  University  has  drawn  conclusions  about  countries  with respect to their environmental health, ecosystem vitality and Climate Change related policy based on metrics with several parameters that are unscientific and subjective.

For  instance,  the  indicator  Projected  Emission  levels  in  2050  under  the  Climate Change Policy objective indicator is computed based on average rate of change in emission of the last 10 years instead of modelling that takes into account a longer time period, extent of renewable  energy  capacity  and  use,  additional  carbon  sinks,  energy  efficiency  etc.  of respective countries whereas Fig 1 of the said report based on Global Carbon Budget 2021, itself shows that India has one of the lowest emission trajectories vis a vis other Countries. Hence, without factoring in this aspect, the use of biased metrics has resulted in a low rank. Further,  the  above  parameter  has  a  weight  of  nearly  14%  in  the  index  vis  a  vis  an  equity based indicator like GHG emission per capita with a weight of only 1%.

This shows that the methodology used in the EPI ranking suffers from many discrepancies including inter alia no specific rationale for weightage assigned to indicators, a flawed model to compute parameters like projected emissions where carbon removals are not accounted for and absence of important parameters of sustainability like energy efficiency or indicators that truly capture ecosystem productivity.

The  index  factors  in  the  extent  of  ecosystems  but  the  regulatory,  provisioning  as  well  as cultural  services  provided  by  various  ecosystems  contributing  to  productivity  like  forests, wetlands, croplands are not assessed and reflected in performance.

With only two indicators under the Agriculture issue category, the efforts of India or other developing countries towards the improvement of their agricultural sector `and practices such as  Agro  biodiversity,  water  use  efficiency  and  soil  health  are  not  reflected  in  the  index. Similarly,  there  are  no  indicators  of  Renewable  Energy  efficiency  or  installed  capacity  to measure the factor of sustainable or efficient energy use of a country. Thus the index does not consider several important indicators of sustainable consumption and production.

***