Recently, there has been a flurry of articles on whether India should commit itself to attain net zero emissions of greenhouse gases and if so, when. What net zero emissions mean is that India will emit only as much emissions as could be absorbed by our forests, crops, vegetation, soils etc. Most articles point out the difficulties of meeting such goals and the high cost of doing so, whereas those in favour have optimistic views of technologies. We flag key issues, fallacies and pointers in this debate, some not raised before.
1. Target year is not the only measure of an achievement. Somehow reaching ‘net zero’ is seen as the goal only in terms of a year by which it is to be achieved: 2050, 2060, 2070 etc. We recall that the GHGs, especially CO2, have very long lifetimes and persist for more than 100 years. In such a long-term pathway, the peaking year, peaking height, the rate of decelerating to zero, and time taken to reach net zero are equally important.
