Allocating a Cumulative Carbon Budget to India –Results from Different Budgeting Periods and Sharing Principles

Introduction: Paris Agreement, aiming to limit global warming to 2°C, has stipulated a global discussion regarding allocating a fair share of world’s cumulative carbon emissions to countries. Thereafter, different theories proposing various sharing principles are being proposed. The present study estimates the future cumulative carbon budget allocation to India using these sharing principles.

Aims: The aim is to explore India’s share in the world’s carbon budget for different budgeting periods using different sharing principles, and find out which sharing principle is in the best interest of the country.

Methodology: Using the four different sharing principles (equity, inertia, blended and inclusion) proposed in previous studies, India’s share in carbon budget has been calculated. Calculations are done for three budgeting periods (1970-2012; 1990-2012; 2005-2012) in order to find a concrete result. Observations are made to find the different conditions in which various budgets may allocate a high carbon budget to India.

Results: Inclusion sharing principle has been found to allocate the highest carbon budget to India in all the three budgeting periods. It has been found that the higher the number of historical emissions years taken into calculations, the higher is the budget allocation to India. Historical accountability factor is deduced to be the reason. A new sharing disparity trend has also been observed in which the inclusion principle is allocating a higher budget to India in stricter warming limits while a lower budget is allocated in case of less strict warming limits.

We have also found that the principles of inertia, equity and blended sharing allocate high budget to India when lesser number of years and more recent years are taken into calculations.

Conclusion: We argue that for a developing country like India, historical accountability is an important factor for budget sharing decisions and inclusion sharing principle has been claimed to be in the best interest of the country.