Taking the first decisive step towards reporting its carbon emissions — domestically and internationally — the Ministry of Environment and Forests is moving decks to create a network of scientists who will calculate carbon emissions by India and effects of climate change on the economy and human life.

Pegged as India’s own Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the findings by the group, which will be called the Network for Climate Change Assessment, will be part of India’s National Communication (Nat Comm) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Nat Comm includes an inventory of greenhouse gases and emissions. In a letter to Chief Ministers and some Members of Parliament, a confident India has now proposed submitting Nat Comms once every two years (as opposed to once in six years as done earlier). This implies inviting international scrutiny on Indian emissions and mitigation actions, which is a shift from its earlier stance.

The Network for Climate Change Assessment is set to meet for the first time on October 14 in New Delhi and will include as many as 220 scientists from 120 national institutions, and is being organised by the MoEF and the Department of Science and Technology.

Meanwhile, decks are also being moved to create a legislation for climate change, which will primarily include setting mitigation targets and reporting decisions on emission cuts for scrutiny to Parliament. In the first general correspondence on the issue of legislation, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has written to MPs and CMs introducing the idea of a legislation for climate change. It points out that India will remain accountable only to Parliament, seen as an attempt to belie concerns that India will lose its negotiating power by inviting global scrutiny through its reports to UNFCCC.

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