Ahead of Conference of the Parties (COP30) in November in Belém, Brazil, global headwinds have left many developed countries in the West increasingly reluctant to take on the mantle of climate leadership. India, like other countries, is expected to update climate commitments and present an adaption plan. Should India take global leadership on climate change? Hisham Mundol and Ulka Kelkar discuss the question in a conversation moderated by Jacob Koshy. Edited excerpts:
This seems to be a very unusual lead-up to a COP. The U.S. has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, the European Union is reluctant to assume leadership on climate, and Brazil, which is hosting COP30, appears only to be stressing on implementation. Are we heading towards a washout?
Hisham Mundol: I am by nature a ‘glass half full’ person. Before most COPs, there is often a lack of direction. We live in particularly turbulent geopolitical times and I imagine we may not get sweeping new outcomes like we did in 2015, with the Paris Agreement. Despite the U.S.’s exit (from the Paris Agreement), I see the emergence of an ‘Axis of Good’ — a number of countries working with one another consistently on climate change. We’re seeing Europeans and Indians working on climate technology. I wouldn’t be surprised if Brazil and India work on areas where there is common ground, such as forests. India has never been the most glamorous player on international climate negotiations, but it has something far more valuable than glamour, and that is a steady hand. Climate change is not a politically divisive issue in India. We have made commitments and are working towards them. Finally, an ‘implementation COP’ may not sound ambitious but it we manage to implement the promises already made, that would be real progress.
Ulka Kelkar: First, I expect that this COP will emphasise the need for finance for climate adaption and not just for (mitigation) actions where there is already private sector revenue. So, not just (finance for) solar power or electric vehicles, but also for adaptation to potential climate impacts in sectors such as agriculture and water resources.
Second, the emphasis on implementation means that developing countries like ours need to create a pipeline of projects that we can invest in — not just sectors but specific projects.
And third, this big number of $1.3 trillion (an annual figure that must be raised by 2035 as climate finance) should feature in the title of the ‘Baku to Belém’ road map that will come up for discussion at this COP. This road map should include the entire financial system — not just public finance, but also the private sector, multilateral development banks, and philanthropies — to discuss how the finance flows can become greener.
Isn’t implementation something that countries ought to be doing locally? Why do we need a COP for that?
Ulka Kelkar: Many COPs end up reaching a point where there is a near-breakdown of negotiations and attempts are made to salvage it in the last minute. But that drama aside, the process continues and each COP is an incremental development over the previous one.
Implementation cannot happen without discussing the means of implementation, which is primarily finance. It can also mean technoloy and skilling. We hope that there will be discussions on innovative new sources of finance that can be added to the pool of money required for adapting to and mitigating climate change. Once these discussions happen, on the means of implementation, countries can go back and implement (projects) on some practical basis. Otherwise, it (implementation) is left to just how much public funding countries can raise domestically; and how much private investment businesses and banks can bring in based on profit considerations alone.
The scientific reality is that even official commitments by countries to cut carbon emissions are unlikely to reduce global emissions enough to keep them below the Paris Agreement target of a 2°C rise by 2100. This is partly because of the high costs involved, as we had earlier discussed. How do we ensure that countries don’t get stuck in a blame game, and instead evolve creative solutions regarding funding adaptations?
Hisham Mundol: International cooperation has worked best when driven not by largesse but by individual, national, strategic, and security interests. When the world responded to HIV-AIDS, it was because it realised that if large parts of sub-Saharan Africa were going to be ravaged by the epidemic, it would cause unrest. The cost of a security intervention is dramatically more than a developmental intervention. China is not building a green economy because it loves the environment, but because it realises that that this is the future. Big industrial conglomerates in India, such as the Adani Group and Reliance Group, are investing as much as they are in green energy because they see that there is shareholder value to be created. Consider carbon pricing: many countries are looking at establishing some form of carbon market (where individual reductions in carbon emissions can be traded for profit).
Ulka Kelkar: Often, I think that the scale of the challenge for India is not always understood in the West and sometimes the opportunity that that scale offers is also not fully appreciated. So, one thing that has come out in the news recently is that for the first time, emissions from India’s power sector have actually stopped growing because there is so much more renewable energy now in the electricity system. If you look at model projections for the future, you will see that even decades into the future, despite being a growing economy where houses have to be built, manufacturing jobs have to be created, and power has to supplied for a variety of applications from transport to cooking, India’s power sector emissions are actually not projected to grow. So, there is a kind of decoupling that has already happened between energy and emissions. The scale of this is not really always appreciated by those in the West.
On the adaptation side, the scale really matters. Innovative aggregated solutions, such as the PM-KUSUM scheme, which uses solar energy in the agriculture sector, or electric buses for public transport, can drive down costs and make services and public goods cheaper.
Second, we really need to actively look for projects where there are both adaptation and mitigation benefits. For example, projects that would not only help counter the impacts of heat or flood risks but also bring down emissions. An example would be cold-chain storage systems in agriculture that are solar powered.
Ahead of COP30, India, like other countries, is expected to submit updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). India is also expected to submit a National Adaptation Plan (NAP). According to you, how should these look?
Hisham Mundol: India already has an ambitious target of drawing 50% of its electricity mix from non-fossil sources by 2030. A lot of progress has happened on this front: renewables account for about half of the country’s installed power capacity. Since green hydrogen production relies on renewable energy, explicitly codifying this link, such as by recognising renewable energy for green hydrogen, would be a good move. Even if such a move is incremental in terms of national commitments, incorporating it into the NDCs would send a signal of intent.
Ulka Kelkar: The biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions is industry. This is a hard-to-abate sector because a lot of emissions come not from the use of energy where you can switch the fuel, but from process emissions. Unless you have a different way of making cement or a different way of making steel, it is going to be very difficult to change those process emissions. So, it might be time to consider as a long-term signal, some kind of new NDC target for the industry sector. It can mean bringing in more electrification, which itself can come from renewable or cleaner sources.
Second, we can look at ways of prioritising certain projects. Sometime ago, India had come up a list of projects where it would be willing to participate in the international carbon market. It said, for example, we don’t want to sell credits based on just solar; we would like to consider solar plus storage (by using batteries). So why not have a wish list of priority projects like that for adaptation as well, which could, of course, be modified by each State in the country? And with that, indicate certain types of models where finance can be ‘blended’ (partly funded by private and public sector)?
