The Path to a Safe Climate Goes Through India

It seems fitting that NASA scientists announced that 2014 was the hottest year on record immediately before Prime Minister Modi and President Obama meet in India next week. Because these two leaders have a unique opportunity to set the world on a path to address more than half of the projected global warming through mid-century, a critical period for avoiding irreversible impacts.

To do this, the leaders need to extend the climate and energy agreement they reached last September, and add a program to reduce black carbon soot, methane, and ground-level ozone, the main component of urban smog. Their earlier agreement included using the Montreal Protocol to cut hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), used as refrigerants and for insulating foams. During next week's meeting they can agree on a fast timetable for doing this ahead of the UN climate meeting in December in Paris, providing new momentum for those climate negotiations as well.

When combined with China's new rules to reduce air pollution and associated investment of $277 billion, and the earlier agreement between President Xi and President Obama to cut HFCs under the Montreal Protocol, these actions can set the pace to immediately slow climate change through mid-century. Globally, cutting these short-lived non-carbon dioxide climate pollutants can avoid up to 0.6°C of warming by 2050, and cut projected warming in half.

Because air pollution is now the largest source of premature death in the world, making these cuts globally also would save about 100 million lives from now to 2050 who will otherwise die from both indoor and outdoor air pollution. In addition, reducing these pollutants would improve India's annual crop yields enough to feed more than 90 million people living below the poverty line.

The benefits of cutting the short-lived climate pollutants accrue primarily in the region making the cuts, which is one of the reasons California cut its black carbon emissions from transport by 90 percent. Technologies are available to achieve similar reductions worldwide, and California and India have started the India-California Air Pollution Mitigation Program to replicate the California success. This pragmatic collaboration ensures a fast start for cutting black carbon and ozone pollution and improving the air quality for hundreds of millions of Indians living in and around major cities, as well as those still cooking with biomass.

The upcoming leaders' meeting will undoubtedly include expanded cooperation to cut carbon dioxide, the number one global warming pollutant. This likely will include accelerating India's already ambitious expansion of solar power, and improving energy efficiency, which can produce big and fast climate mitigation. For example, Lawrence Berkeley Energy Lab in California calculates that by making its room air conditioners super efficient India can save enough energy to avoid building 120 medium-sized power plants by 2030. President Obama and Prime Minister Modi agreed during their last meeting to work together to capture the energy efficiency gains from appliances. Because India uses half or more of its peak electricity for room air conditioning during the hot season, these efficiency gains will not only reduce India's carbon dioxide emissions, they also will reduce pressure on India's electricity grid and make it easier for the Prime Minister to expand access to energy for the 400 million underserved in India.