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Dear readers,
Welcome to the Climate Weekly newsletter by the Centre for Science and Environment’s Climate Change programme and Down to Earth.
India recently submitted its Fourth Biennial Update Report to provide an update on the country’s greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory for 2020. Sehr Raheja and I analyse the report and provide a sectoral breakdown of India’s emissions in our latest piece. The report highlights that the country’s overall emissions declined by 7.93 per cent in 2020 compared to 2019, reducing from 2,647 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO₂e) to 2,437 MtCO₂e. This decline has been attributed to the economic impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown. If the impact of Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (or LULUCF) is excluded from the analysis, the dip in emissions amounts to 5.52 per cent. This is in contrast with previous years where India’s emissions grew at an average rate of 3.35 per cent annually between 2016 and 2019 (excluding LULUCF).
Sectorally, energy, agriculture, industrial processes and product use (IPPU) and waste were the highest emitters, contributing 75.7 per cent, 13.72 per cent, 8.06 per cent and 2.56 per cent respectively towards the overall emissions. The LULUCF sector, being the sole absorber of carbon dioxide, removed 522 MtCO₂e, or 22 per cent of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2020.
In extreme weather news, 2024 has surpassed 2023 to be the warmest year on record, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). The average global temperature exceeded 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level for the first time in a calendar year, rising to an equivalent of 1.6°C above pre-industrial level in 2024. Further, all continents, except Antarctica and Australasia, experienced their warmest year. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere broke new records as well, reaching 422 parts per million (ppm), increasing by 2.9 ppm in 2024 compared to 2023. In a recent interview with Al Jazeera English, CSE Climate’s Avantika Goswami spoke about the insights from the C3S data and what it means for the world.
Another analysis published in Nature Communications has stated how exposure to extreme heat is highly unequal, with developing countries bearing the brunt of such exposure. The paper highlights that India, China, Indonesia, Nigeria and Bangladesh are among the top five exposed countries, cumulatively experiencing 53.9 per cent of the global total exposed hours to extreme heat in 2020.
Interestingly, the paper points towards the role of global trade in transferring heat exposure from the Global North to regions across the Global South. Lower-middle-income and low-income countries accounted for 53.7 per cent and 18.3 per cent of global exposure to heat, with only 5.7 per cent and one per cent of global labour compensation. Wealthier countries also experienced fewer hours of extreme heat exposure per capita than developing countries. This further reinforces the disparity between those bearing the historical responsibility for global warming and those suffering from its impacts.
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By - Upamanyu Das
Climate Change, CSE
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| EXTREME WEATHER TRACKER |
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Finally, India also confirms 2024 as its hottest year ever recorded, 16 January 2025
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What started the LA wildfires: Warming-fuelled ‘hydroclimate whiplash’, 14 January 2025
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CLIMATE NEWS | SCIENCE| IMPACTS| POLITICS |
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| Video |
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Online Training Course |
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