India criticizes inequalities at the climate summit
The Rise of the South: India’s Failure to Rethink its Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge at the 28th COP28 UN Climate Change Conference
At the conference, India has not signed any declarations that mention decarbonization, including the Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge, which aims to triple renewable-energy generation capacity by 2030 and calls for an end to new investments in coal. India also rejected a declaration that calls for emissions cuts in the health sector. That’s despite the country having signed a similar renewable-energy pledge and a commitment to develop low-carbon health systems at the meeting of the G20 group of nations in August.
If India’s UNFCCC pledges are met, and the country continues to accelerate renewable-energy deployment, its carbon dioxide emissions will slow and peak in the 2030s, according to a best-case scenario modelled by the non-profit group Climate Analytics, based in Berlin.
The country isn’t likely to switch to using the metric of total emission reductions soon due to the fact that it would have to phase out fossil fuels.
Chaturvedi says that India will not consider talking about absolute emissions until its economic growth tapers off. He says that it will not happen until India becomes a high income economy. “For any developing economy, we cannot say that we are reducing emissions and harming developmental concerns and progress in our own country in favour of the developed world, which will be reaping the benefits.”
Meanwhile, the most climate-vulnerable countries helped push global leaders to adopt a landmark agreement on a loss and damage fund. The fund aims to provide compensation to the low-income countries that are bearing the brunt of climate-change damage.
At COP28, low- and middle-income nations including India are focusing on clarifying how the fund will be handled so that money can be disbursed quickly. “The big expectation and hope is that we should not drag our feet for another five or ten years,” Chaturvedi says.
India is pitching itself as a leader of the global south at the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), under way in Dubai. During his opening speech at the meeting, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a sharp rebuke to wealthy nations: “A small section of mankind has exploited nature indiscriminately. But the whole of humanity is paying its price, especially the residents of the global south.”
The UN report on how to hold non-state actors to account on net-zero promises warns of delays, excuses or more greenwashing. Researchers need to advise on what they should look like and scrutinize disclosures, targets and metrics for progress in order to rise to this challenge.
Climate change has placed the world in danger of breaching numerous planetary ‘tipping points’, according to a scientific assessment compiled by more than 200 scientists. Natural systems are crucial to human livelihoods and crossing those points could have irreversible effects. For example, large parts of the Amazon rainforest could be replaced by savannah with as little as 2 °C of warming. Climate scientist Tim Lenton said that the tipping points posed threats of a giant that had never been faced before. The report also points to ‘positive tipping points’ — some of which, such as a shift to solar and wind power, are already in progress — that could result in runaway benefits for the climate.
Scientist Rebellion, an international group of researchers that uses civil disobedience to prompt climate action, is organizing protests across 23 countries during a 2-week event in the United Arab Emiratis. Participants told Nature that they feel disillusioned with the progress from past COPs and the fact that this year’s event is being hosted by a major fossil-fuel producer. They want to avoid carbon emissions and the risks of protest and free speech that comes with the law limiting protest and free speech in the U.S. In an open letter, Scientist Rebellion urged scientists and academics to join them. The letter says they need you. “Wherever you are, become a climate advocate or activist.”
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The ice sheet is rapidly melting. Even at present levels of warming, the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are at risk of irreversible collapse that could boost sea levels this century and beyond.
