India has raised the ambition of one of its most consequential climate commitments. Under its new Nationally Determined Contribution for 2031-35, submitted in April 2026, the country aims to create an additional carbon sink of 3.5 billion to four billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent through forest and tree cover by 2035, compared with the 2005 baseline.
The earlier target was 2.5 billion to three billion tonnes by 2030. The revised commitment places a greater burden on India’s forests, plantations, farms and tree-covered landscapes. But it also raises a question: How will India prove that this additional sink has been created?
Planting more trees or reporting higher forest cover will not be enough. India must reform how it measures, classifies and governs land-based carbon.
India’s updated NDC states that an additional sink of around 2.29 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent was created between 2005 and 2021. On the present accounting basis, India would need to add another 1.21 billion to 1.71 billion tonnes by 2035. This cannot be assessed through area figures alone.
The India State of Forest Report 2023 estimates the country’s forest and tree cover at about 8.27 lakh square kilometres, or 25.17 per cent of its geographical area. These statistics matter, but forest cover, carbon stock and carbon sink are different measures.
Forest cover measures canopy extent. Carbon stock is the carbon already stored in vegetation, soil, litter and deadwood. A carbon sink is the net amount absorbed over time after accounting for gains and losses.
{{/usCountry}}Forest cover measures canopy extent. Carbon stock is the carbon already stored in vegetation, soil, litter and deadwood. A carbon sink is the net amount absorbed over time after accounting for gains and losses.
{{/usCountry}}A landscape may remain green in satellite imagery while losing carbon through felling, harvesting, fire or degradation. Conversely, agroforestry may add carbon on agricultural land that is not legally classified as forest.
India’s forest-cover definition includes all patches of at least one hectare with a canopy density of 10 per cent or more, irrespective of ownership or legal status. Natural forests, commercial plantations, orchards, bamboo stands and agroforestry systems may therefore enter the same broad assessment.
Tracking canopy is useful, but it does not establish climate value. A mature natural forest, a eucalyptus plantation, a mango orchard and a poplar-based agroforestry plot differ in biomass, biodiversity, water use, harvesting cycles and permanence.
Plantations and trees outside forests are indispensable. India needs agroforestry, farm forestry, urban trees and restoration. The problem is aggregating different land systems without accounting for their distinct carbon trajectories.
India must therefore move from aggregate tree-cover reporting to spatially explicit land-carbon accounting.
The first requirement is to establish what has happened to each major land category since 2005. India must distinguish forests that have remained forests from degraded forests that have regenerated, croplands converted to agroforestry, natural forests replaced by plantations, and tree-covered land later harvested or diverted.
These transitions determine additionality and permanence. Satellite imagery can identify canopy change, fragmentation, fire and harvesting. But it must be combined with repeated field measurements of tree diameter, height, species, age and biomass. Soil carbon, deadwood and litter should be included where material.
The framework must recognise uncertainty. Changes in sensors, sampling, biomass equations or land classifications can alter estimates without real ground change. Methodological revisions should be transparent and treated as better science, not weaker performance.
The second requirement is to connect the national target with State action. States report saplings planted, hectares treated or funds utilised, but these indicators reveal little about net carbon added and retained.
India should create State-level land-carbon balance sheets recording opening carbon stocks, annual additions, harvesting losses, forest diversion, degradation, fire-related reversals and net removals. Natural forests, plantations, mangroves, agroforestry and trees outside forests should be reported separately.
This must not become a competition among States. Preventing degradation in a forest-rich State differs from expanding agroforestry in an agricultural State. Drylands cannot match humid forests. Ecological context must shape assessment.
India must also guard against overlapping claims. The same landscape may be linked to compensatory afforestation, CAMPA, the Green India Mission, the Green Credit Programme, voluntary carbon markets or the emerging Indian Carbon Market. Without a common spatial system, the same hectare could be presented as contributing to multiple commitments.
A national registry should record each intervention’s location, baseline, financing source, environmental claim and monitoring status, while separating publicly financed outcomes from independently additional carbon-market projects.
Finally, the sink commitment must not become another plantation target. Fast-growing monocultures may accumulate biomass quickly, but can strain water, reduce habitat diversity and remain vulnerable to pests, fire and harvesting. Poorly designed plantations may threaten grasslands and wetlands.
Every intervention must meet ecological and social safeguards. Species should suit local climate and hydrology. Natural ecosystems should not be converted for a higher carbon number. Community rights and consent must be respected, and reversals deducted from future gains.
India already has many of the required institutions. What it lacks is an integrated architecture. The Union government should establish a national land-carbon accounting mission, standardise land categories, build consistent historical baselines, strengthen permanent field plots and publish an annual land-sector carbon dashboard.
India’s new target is not simply a promise to plant more trees. It is a commitment to prove that additional carbon has been absorbed and retained over time, and that this has been achieved without undermining biodiversity, water security or local livelihoods. By 2035, its credibility will depend on whether India can demonstrate, state by state and landscape by landscape, where the additional removals occurred, how they were measured and whether they are likely to endure.
(The views expressed are personal)
This article is authored by Sayanta Ghosh, associate fellow, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).