Why PM Modi's Net Zero Vision Is Truly Viable

Achieving Net Zero goals is contingent on three things—a lofty climate vision, a stable and performing government, metrics to monitor the progress. India fulfils all the three criteria.

- Karuna Gopal Vartakavi

With COP 27 in Egypt just days away, the topic of climate has again come under the arc lights. In a span of seven years starting from COP 21 in 2015, governments of 823 cities across every continent have made net-zero pledges. It's not just the governments but the private sector matched the pace set by national and subnational constituents. Over 1,500 companies, representing around US$ 11.4 trillion in revenue have set net-zero targets. To those who understand the systemic issues of climate crisis, this net zero vision may appear almost implausible. Their skepticism is in a way is justified. It's barely a week ago that Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, failed to defend his country's "Miniscule Climate Progress"-apparently a plethora of polices announced by him showed dismal results. Recently, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) warned the UK government that the current approach to address climate issues is seriously inadequate and will result in UK failing to meet its targets. One might recall that UK's Ten Point Plan released by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was an elaborate 32-page document on how the country will transition to net zero. With the new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wanting to make London a "Hub for Green Finance" and supporting net zero transition, he could be the beacon light of hope for disgruntled environmentalists of the country.

As far as the USA is concerned, the country never had a Climate Law to support its pronouncements made at previous UN Climate conferences-be in in emission reductions or climate financing. But the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) under Biden administration among other reforms has climate action as a major component-this might just put the country in the right direction.