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.”

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