India has assumed the G20 presidency at a crucial and opportune time in historical past, even because the half-yearly report card signifies that consensus-building within the grouping has been harder than India might have anticipated. This transient identifies six areas the place India can manifest its functionality to guide the constructing of an efficient and believable local weather motion plan. Globally, championing the monitoring of per-capita emissions and fossil fuel-based energy technology might be important, while constructing on the momentum of successive G20 presidencies underneath international locations from the World South. Engagements with the G20’s enterprise monitor in the direction of non-public finance, ESG investments, and ideas of round economic system have to be operationalised. Lastly, it’s crucial that India construct its diplomatic heft within the area of local weather motion, to gas its personal progress trajectory.
India’s G20 presidency gives a chance to set and drive world discourse on key points. (ANI)
India has needed to cope with the conundrum of growth versus local weather motion for a while now. But, “certainties are phrases from the previous,” and the ‘Abstract for Policymakers’ of the IPCC’s Sixth Evaluation Report (AR6) 2023, launched in March, is a clarion name for pressing local weather motion. It warns that if the present growth pathway shouldn’t be reversed, world warming will exceed 1.5°C in the course of the twenty first century. Because of this each incremental rise in world temperature from hereon will bear impacts which are extra extreme and frequent. Roughly 3.6 billion of the world’s inhabitants reside in extremely weak local weather contexts. A majority of this inhabitants are in creating international locations throughout the World South and are notably at excessive danger. Inequities, low capability, and restricted monetary sources compounded with present growth challenges, constrain the power of those international locations to mitigate and adapt to unsure local weather dangers. The window of alternative to behave has already shrunk, and within the absence of extra concerted efforts, the state of affairs will solely possible worsen.
Management for local weather governance might be key in fulfilling the duty. The G20 presidency affords India a chance to take the lead in local weather motion and provide a low-carbon progress mannequin that different economies might undertake. On the intersection of the priorities highlighted by India for its presidency—world worth chains, infrastructure finance, technological disruptions, monetary inclusion, commerce, and agriculture—sits local weather adaptation, resilience and vitality transition. India is the one 2 degrees-compatible nation within the G20 that’s projected to fulfill its local weather targets. A lot of essential initiatives such because the Worldwide Photo voltaic Alliance (ISA), Coalition for Catastrophe Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), and the Nationwide Inexperienced Hydrogen Mission, in addition to the rise in renewable vitality assist its efforts to decouple emissions from financial progress.
On the time of penning this transient, practically half a yr had handed since India assumed the G20 presidency and there are indicators that constructing a consensus is more durable than it could have first appeared. How can India leverage the remaining months of its G20 presidency to translate world local weather targets into motion? What key motion factors may help it additional its local weather agenda even because it builds its personal diplomatic heft? This transient evaluates the G20’s collective weight and analyses the precedence accorded to local weather motion by G20 presidencies to date. It delves into the learnings it affords for the Indian presidency, and recommends a six-point agenda for India.
The paper will be accessed by clicking right here.
Authored by: Aparna Roy and Charmi Mehta.
