Context

NITI Aayog virtually launched the India Component of the Nationally Determined Contributions - NDC-Transport Initiative for Asia –TIA.

About

• With the aim to promote a comprehensive approach to decarbonize transport inIndia, Vietnam, and China, NDC–TIA is a joint programme, supported by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) and implemented by a consortium of seven organisations, namely: 
  • Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
  • International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT)
  • World Resources Institute (WRI)
  • International Transport Forum (ITF)
  • Agora Verkehrswende (AGORA)
  • Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT) Foundation
  • Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century e.V. (REN21)

The Indian Component

• The India Component is implemented by six consortium organisations, all except SLoCaT.
• Implementing partner: On behalf of the Government of India, NITI Aayog, the country’s premier policy think tank, will be the implementing partner.
• Duration: The NDC-TIA programme has a duration of 4 years.
• It will allow India and other partner countries to achieve accountable long-term targets by making a sectoral contribution through various interventions, coordinated with a large number of stakeholders in the domain.
• This will contribute towards achieving their NDCs and increasing their ambition in the transport sector of 2025 NDCs.

How will it work?

• The NDC–TIA India Component will focus on-
  • establishing a multi-stakeholder dialogue platform for decarbonizing transport in India
  • strengthening GHG and transport modelling capacities
  • providing technical support on GHG emission reduction measures
  • financing climate actions in transport
  • offering policy recommendations on electric vehicle (EV) demand and supply policies
  • evaluating business models through cost-benefit analyses and so forth. 
• A significant focus will be given on electric mobility, which would require coupling of transport and energy sectors and receiving cross-sectoral expertise from ministries, international development agencies, think tanks, public and private organisations.
• Ultimately, the programme intends to support the development of policies and regulations to promote electric vehicle charging infrastructure uptake and smooth widescale adoption of EVs in India. 
• The programme aims at high ambition in the transport sector directly supporting the country’s NDC targets.

The need

• India has a massive and diverse transport sector that caters to the needs of billion people.
• It has the world’s second-largest road network, which contributes to maximum greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through all means of transportation.
• With increasing urbanisation, the fleet size i.e. the number of sales of vehicles is increasing rapidly. It is projected that the total number of vehicles will be doubled by 2030.