Will India Survive in Paris Climate Negotiation?
The first ever comment to the First Draft- which can be termed the Paris Protocol- came from India as ‘lopsided’ to bring climate justice, ‘inadequate’ for developing countries and ‘lenient’ to developed countries. Usually, after the Bonn Intercessional Conference, which commences in June every year, the negotiation on climate change gets movement. However, this year, it is the submission of national climate goals of countries as Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) that have started posturing the countries for the Paris Summit. As the major players and greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters have submitted their action points as INDCs, will the Paris Climate Summit be a milestone in fighting climate change in the 21st Century?
The French President would be more optimistic about luring on an elusive Paris Protocol after India’s entry on 1 October at the UNFCCC portal. The synthesis report, which eagerly awaited India’s entry, is now being prepared to become the negotiating text of the Summit. India will vehemently oppose any legally binding protocol that includes major emitters, which has been its longstanding position. However, the first draft of the protocol hints at a binding agreement falling on India and other developing countries, to which India has already reacted.
Much-awaited and anticipated but least publicly consulted among the 119 INDCs submitted (till October 5) is India’s INDC, named as ‘working Towards Climate Justice’. It is ‘welcomed’ as a ‘promising’ document that is better than the ‘US and EU’. By invoking Gandhian ecology and Vedas in its INDC, tactically released to the public on Gandhi’s birth anniversary, India has positioned itself advantageously for the meanest and toughest week-long negotiation at the Paris Climate Summit (COP21). While India has postulated the right strategy for the Paris negotiation, back home, it needs to streamline its grandiose plan with accountability and monitoring institutions in place. However, the green groups in India are surprisingly satisfied with the content of the INDC!
Since June this year, major countries have been submitting their INDCs to address the impacts of climate change. Many such INDC communications will continue until 2016. Among the 194 member countries of COP, 147 agreed under the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) to ‘initiate or intensify’ domestic preparations as INDCs towards adopting a protocol in Paris.
From the outset, India’s INDC has been very impressive but not path-breaking. Those who have labelled India as being obstructionist since the Copenhagen Summit or from prior COPs would rather be cheerful about the latter’s commitment to a 33 - 35% reduction of emissions by 2030 from 2005 levels. It may be a ‘conservative’ emission reduction, but it continues its Copenhagen voluntary pledge of 20-25% intensity reduction by 2020. The other major emitter - China, which submitted its INDC as ‘Enhanced Actions on Climate Change’ in June, had promised to lower its CO2 emissions by 60-65% by 2030 from the 2005 level.
For the 2015 Paris Agreement, at best, a compromise declaration, India will pitch for establishing an ‘effective, cooperative and equitable global architecture based on climate justice’ and the principle of Equity and Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities before the official release of the INDC, the Minister of Environment and Forest and Climate Change had argued for bringing the ‘lifestyle’ debate to Paris negotiations. Although India through G-77 and China successfully prioritized ‘un-sustainable patterns of consumption and production’ in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) adopted in the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, present national contradictions between ecological space and survival space of marginalized sections would instead backfire by questioning climate justice. India should reformulate its lifestyle argument as her northern neighbouring country, Bhutan, has a Gross National Happiness (GNH).
The government has tactfully stage-managed world events to convey India’s climate action plan. During the Sustainable Summit at the Special Session of the General Assembly in New York, the Indian Prime Minister eloquently quoted Gandhi as INDC. For UNFCCC and international audiences, the INDC, rationalized with Gandhian ecology, would sound a bell. Nationally, successive governments have abused or misused the spirit of ‘trusteeship’ as put forward in the INDC. A recent example is how land bills/ordinances were approved and later withdrawn.
The impressive low-carbon path, which espouses nuclear power and hydropower, among other non-fossil fuels, will face firm opposition due to its severe social and environmental consequences. To reach the potential of hydropower, India must withdraw the Supreme Court’s stay order on hydropower in Uttaranchal, implementing the controversial Inter Basin Water Transfer (famously known as the Interlinking of Rivers). Most importantly, a tussle on the Brahmaputra with China to harness massive hydropower and recent foreign policy failure in Nepal, potentially a source of significant hydropower for India, would be major hurdles. Similarly, India's nuclear power depends entirely on the decision of the Nuclear Supply Group (NSG), which has not yet given a signal. Most foreign trips of Indian PMs, linked to the uninterrupted supply of uranium, have not been transformed into reality. Reputation of Clean coal technology of its cleanliness will continue a debating instrument in coming days too.
Aware of being cornered during the Paris negotiation, India has been working behind closed doors with a few of the most vulnerable island nations and like-minded developing countries. Through the Forum for India-Pacific Island Cooperation (FIPIC), India has reached out to the most vulnerable countries on climate change, which can be helpful during the Paris Summit. Unlike in 2009, India has yet to forge a joint SAARC statement for Paris. Among the powerful BASIC groups, China has already moved ahead. The newly formed Vulnerable 20 (V20) had just completed a huddle in Peru, devising a financial mechanism to support and sustain each other. India’s call for financial obligation for developed countries may get support from V20, but finance transferring to India for its $2.3 trillion demand would face a fractured mandate. Five SAARC countries are members of V20, which will play a tremendous role in the Paris Negotiation.
All member countries will meet at Bonn from October 19-23 to continue negotiation on the First Draft. India would like to rush ahead, making partners to convey its reservations on the first Draft. The so-called ‘national interests’ of sovereign nations have jeopardized the effort to protect, preserve and manage ‘commons’. Fighting climate change has become a victim of such parochial notions. India’s INDC may dispel its image of being an obstructionist during the Paris talks, but India, like other major GHG emitters, won’t let down its national interest sooner. Thus, all eyes are set on the upcoming most crucial COP of the 21st Century.