Aathira Perinchery 
Bengaluru: In 2020, India emitted 2,959 million tonnes (mt) of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere. The national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that year had decreased by 7.93% when compared to 2019. In the same year, India’s forest and tree cover along with other land uses sequestered around 522 mt of carbon dioxide equivalent, which brought about a 22% reduction in the country’s carbon dioxide emissions when compared to 2019.
These are some of the details that India reported to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change on December 30. But what is this report, what does it mean, and why is it important?
What are biennial update reports?
Biennial update reports (BUR) are documents that countries that are party to the Paris Agreement of 2015 submit to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which implements the goals of the agreement.
According to the UNFCCC, a BUR should contain “updates of national Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventories, including a national inventory report and information on mitigation actions, needs and support received.” These have to be calculated using the guidelines specified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). BURs are also meant to provide updates on actions taken by the country to implement the guidelines of the convention, including the status of its GHG emissions and removals of carbon sinks as well as actions it has taken to reduce emissions or enhance sinks. Forests, for instance, are a carbon sink, as they help sequester carbon from the atmosphere by trapping them as carbon in trees.
A BUR can provide an update of the most recently submitted national communication (reports by member parties that include an inventory of certain anthropogenic emissions by sources and removal of sinks of all greenhouse gases, and steps taken by the country to implement the guidelines of the convention).
While BURs can be an update to the national communication submitted by a country, they can also be stand-alone documents. While all parties have to submit a BUR every two years, the UNFCCC permits Least Developed Countries (such as Bangladesh) and Small Island Developing States (such as the Maldives) to submit these reports at their discretion.
India and its past BURs
India has set up a National Steering Committee under the chairmanship of the secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), to prepare and implement the work programme of the BUR. The committee is composed of members from ministries and departments linked to the various elements of information provided in the report.
India submitted its first BUR in January 2016, in which it provided the greenhouse gas inventory for the year 2010. According to that report, India emitted or 2,136.8 mt of carbon dioxide equivalent from sectors including energy, industrial processes and product use, agriculture and waste. Including emissions caused by changes in land use (Land Use-Land Use Change and Forestry or LULUCF), India emitted 1,884.3 mt of carbon dioxide equivalent that year (LULUCF served as a sink that sequestered carbon rather than releasing emissions). The energy sector contributed the highest to GHG emissions in 2010, releasing as much as 70.7% of the total GHG emissions that year.
India’s second BUR, submitted in December 2018, reported that the country’s annual GHG emissions had increased (from 2,136.8 mt of carbon dioxide equivalent or 1,884.3 mt including LULUCF) in 2010 to 2,607.5 mt of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2014 (and 2,306.3 mt of carbon dioxide equivalent if LULUCF was included). The energy sector again accounted for the most GHG emissions in 2014: it released 73% of the total GHG emissions. India’s second BUR also quoted the increase in forest and tree cover as reported by the India State of Forest Reports: “Forest and tree cover increased from 24.01% of the total geographical area as reported in India State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2013 to 24.39% as reported in ISFR 2017,” it read.
India’s third BUR, submitted in February 2021, also reported similar trends. In 2016, the country’s GHG emissions amounted to 2,838.89 mt of carbon dioxide equivalent (and 2,531.07 mt including LULUCF). Carbon dioxide emissions accounted for 2,231 mt (78.59% of all emissions); emissions produced by energy generation again showed an increase (75%). The BUR again pointed out how forest and tree cover showed an increase of 1.65% in area, as per the 2019 India State of Forest Report, when compared to 2017.
India’s latest BUR
India’s fourth BUR, which is an update to India’s third national communication that India submitted in December 2023, lists India’s GHG emissions in the year 2020. During that year, the country emitted 2,959 mt of carbon dioxide equivalent (and 2,437 mt if LULUCF is included). The main contributors to GHG emissions in 2020 were fossil fuels, methane emissions from livestock and increasing aluminium and cement production, the BUR stated. Carbon dioxide was again at the top of all emissions (80.53%), followed by methane (13.32%) and nitrous oxide (5.13%). The energy sector accounted for the highest emissions yet again (75.66%).
India’s forest and tree cover along with other land uses sequestered approximately 522 mt of carbon dioxide equivalent, which was equal to reducing 22% of the country’s total carbon dioxide emissions that year, the report states.
“India’s forest and tree cover has consistently increased and currently stands at 25.17% of the total geographical area of the country,” the BUR read, quoting the latest ISFR report that the Union government released on December 21. “During 2005 to 2021, additional carbon sink of 2.29 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent has been created,” it further read.
“This BUR shows that India is not only going above and beyond its fair share of the mitigation burden but is also emerging as the front-runner in fair climate action,” the BUR concluded.
Incidentally, the values for land use, changes in land use, and the extent of forest cover (LULUFC) has kept increasing in India’s BURs, thereby compensating for the country’s increasing GHG emissions. For example, India has reported compensations of around 252 mt, 301 mt, 307 mt and 522 mt of carbon dioxide equivalent by LULUFC in GHG emissions in its first, second, third and fourth BURs, respectively.
One reason is that India’s State of Forest Reports have consistently reported an increase in tree and forest cover, and a corresponding increase in carbon stock, and thereby sequestration. However, scientists in India have also consistently raised concerns about these ISFRs which the BURs quote; concerns also include many that revolve around the ISFR’s methodology, therefore casting huge shadows on the credibility of the data pertaining to increases in area under tree and forest cover, and carbon stock.
With LULUFC always, thus, remaining a “carbon sink,” India’s fourth BUR, therefore, says that the total national GHG emissions in 2020 (including LULUCF) have decreased by 7.93% when compared to 2019 (though it has increased by 98.34% since 1994).
Among the mitigation measures that India took to reduce carbon emissions, the latest BUR lists increasing renewable energy sources (the share of non-fossil fuel-based power generation capacity in India is at 46.52% as of October 2024, as per the report) and the Street Lighting National Programme as among the many actions that were implemented. In the case of the latter, smart and energy-efficient LEDs have replaced conventional streetlights so much so that between 2015 and 2023, the scheme has brought about an annual energy savings of 8.75 billion kilowatt hours, with an avoided peak demand of 1,459 megawatts every year, thus avoiding around 6.03 mt of carbon dioxide per year in this period.
The BUR also highlighted the paucity of help received from developed nations for climate action. The lack of technology transfer, for instance, “has forced India to rely heavily on domestic resources and stretch national capacity, slowing its efforts to achieve critical climate objectives,” the report noted. Financial help from other countries is also “heavily skewed towards loans rather than grants” and is a concern for climate action, especially implementing adaptation measures that are crucial to urgently tackle climate change, the report added.