How India responds will become clearer in the next two weeks at the UN climate talks in the Peruvian capital. Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, who is in charge of India’s climate policy, declined to comment, saying he planned to speak publicly on Dec. 4 about India’s strategy in Lima.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which swept to power in May promising universal access to electricity for India’s 1.24 billion people, has maintained it won’t sacrifice growth for climate goals, noting that India’s emissions are a quarter of China’s and will remain much lower for decades to come.
At the same time, the International Energy Agency has said India will overtake the U.S. by 2020 as the world’s second-largest coal consumer and soon after China as the biggest importer of the dirtiest fossil fuel.
“Coal will continue to dominate our energy mix for some time,” Piyush Goyal, a former investment banker appointed by Modi to oversee the coal, power and renewable ministries, told a seminar in New Delhi on Nov. 25. “We are taking steps to protect the environment. Neither India nor the world has the luxury of time when it comes to protection of the environment.”
Renewable Goals
That’s not to say India is doing nothing. Goyal plans to double the share of renewable energy feeding India’s power generators within the next five years. He’s targeting 100 gigawatts of solar power plants by 2022, an ambition on par with China’s support for clean energy technologies.
In his public comments, Modi has made a priority of cleaning up India’s energy supply, including the smog that chokes the air in New Delhi with pollution worse than Beijing’s by some measures.
His most recent remarks on the issue put him in sympathy with island nations concerned they’ll be swamped with rising sea levels expected with rising temperatures. But they also suggest that he wants richer nations that caused the problem to make more efforts.
“We, too, are facing the searing impact of climate change,” Modi said in a Nov. 19 speech. “ We cannot side aside and take no action. I have a deep personal commitment to it. But, it is also equally important that the global community accepts its responsibility and implements its commitment.” Curious Envoys
That’s left envoys from industrial nations scratching their heads about whether -- and how -- India can join in the deals the UN envisions coming together next week in Lima and in December 2015 in Paris, when final details of a global emissions pact are expected to be finalized.
India is “an enormously important country,” said Todd Stern, the U.S. State Department official in charge of climate, in comments made in Washington on Nov. 24. “They’ve got to see a path to get to those fundamental development needs that is as low-carbon as possible. Exactly how they are going to play it in Lima and Paris, I don’t know.”
Elina Bardram, the lead envoy for the European Union, told reporters in Lima that, “India coming on board and putting forward their intentions within the first quarter of 2015 would be an instrumental signal of their effort readiness to take part in global efforts.”
The U.K. government has also cited India among nations that should take on “commitments commensurate with their emissions levels.”
“India has low per capita emissions and is rightly focused on development and growth,” the U.K. government said in a Sept. 9 report. “We therefore expect India’s emissions to grow in the near term. The earlier it can peak, around or shortly after 2030, the better.”
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