Partnerships The Catalyst for India's Carbon Neutrality Journey

This opinion piece by Srivatsan Iyer details both status and scope of India's hopeful journey towards carbon neutrality.

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However, carbon neutrality is not a journey that India will make alone. Partnerships—between the Government of India, private enterprises, financial institutions, and international organizations—are the answer to achieving this balance of robust economic growth while ensuring the success of the ambitious climate. The author makes us understand the potential partnerships and collaborative action holds to fill the technology and resource gaps targets. Collaboration is the key. Collaboration of governments, industries, academia, and communities must be fostered in order to build a resilient and sustainable future.

India is steadily marching towards achieving carbon neutrality as it looks to balance economic growth imperatives with climate goals. Being the world's most populous country and the world's third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG), India stands at a crossroad. Climate priorities that India has adopted are stated in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of the Paris Agreement, making clear the sheer scale of the transformation needed. However, carbon neutrality is not a journey that India will make alone. Partnerships—between the Government of India, private enterprises, financial institutions, and international organizations—are the answer to achieving this balance of robust economic growth while ensuring the success of the ambitious climate targets. Climate extremes in terms of increased temperatures, extended droughts, severe hurricanes, frequent cloudburst events, etc., destroy communities and infrastructure, and are likely a state of affairs that could define a new normal for the world. The 2018 Kerala floods is one example, which displaced 5.4 million people and caused damage of more than $3.5 billion. This is why immediate action to address adaptation and climate change resilience is critical in the near term.