MARRAKECH MOROCCO | Nov 14, 2016: With its plans to double its coal production by 2020, India is likely to be the engine that drives global carbon dioxide pollution over the next few years.

Global carbon dioxide production has virtually remained unchanged at about 36.4 billion tonnes a year for the last three years. Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry grew at over 3% per year in the 2000s. Growth slowed in the 2010s and has leveled off in the last three years, according to annual analysis of trends published by the Global Carbon Project in the journal Earth System Science Data.

“It is great news that global carbon dioxide emissions have been flat in the last three years, but it is far too early to proclaim we have reached a peak,” said Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research – Oslo (CICERO) and co-author of the study.

The study attributes the drop and leveling off in the amount of carbon dioxide produced globally to a sharp slowdown in Chinese coal consumption since 2012 and reductions in US coal consumption making important contributions in single years, particularly 2012, 2015, and 2016.

Chinese emissions went down 0.7% in 2015 and are projected to go down another 0.5% in 2016. China has officially pledged to peak its carbon dioxide emissions around 2030. Chinese emission estimates have large uncertainty, and it is difficult to tease out the drivers of recent changes. “It is hard to say whether the Chinese slowdown is due to a successful and smooth restructuring of the Chinese economy or a sign of economic instability” said Peters. “Nevertheless, the unexpected reductions in Chinese emissions give hope that the world’s biggest emitter can deliver much more ambitious emission reductions”.

“Despite positive progress in Chinese, US, and EU emissions, there are increasing concerns with emissions growth in India and other developing countries”, says Robbie Andrew, senior researcher at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research – Oslo (CICERO) and co-author of the study. India’s emissions grew at over 5 per cent in 2015, which happened on the back of a strong decade of growth of around 6 per cent per year. This growth trend is expected to continue with India’s plan to double domestic coal production by 2020—to 1.5 billion tonnes a year.

“While we think it’s unlikely that India’s emissions will ever reach China’s current levels, India could certainly take over from China in driving global emissions growth in the next decade” says Andrew.

But this need not be the case. An analysis of India’s coal requirement in 2020 by Brookings India finds that the 1.5 billion tonnes target is too high compared to the expected increase in coal requirement by 2020. Co-authors Rahul Tongia and Anurag Sehgal say that the most liberal coal requirement calculations put the total amount at around 1.2 billion tonnes in 2020. This figure is subject to certain optimistic assumptions of growth in demand.

(Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/)