OTHER CABINET DECISIONS
India’s ratification of the Paris climate deal was inevitable
PROJECT SAKSHAM GETS GOVT NOD FOR EASY GST ROLL-OUT $3.24-BN ROSNEFT DEAL GETS THE GOVERNMENT'S ALL-CLEAR INDIA RATIFIES PARIS AGREEMENT, BUT WITH CAVEATS RED LINES DRAWN FOR GLOBAL DEAL ON EMISSIONS FROM AVIATION
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday passed the decision to ratify the Paris Agreement, but with conditions.
The Cabinet decided India would ratify the global climate change pact ‘in the context’ of its development agenda, availability of means of global climate finance, an assessment of how the rest of the world is doing to combat climate change, and predictable and affordable access to cleaner source of energy.
The caveat leaves the window open for India to rethink its ratification or targets, in case the commitments from the developed world on providing finance and technology to developing countries do not come through. It also leaves the option open for India to revisit the ratification and its commitments under the agreement, in case any key country reviews or revises its commitments under the agreement, such as the United States. Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for the US presidency, has threatened to do so several times during his campaign.
Once India deposits its instruments of ratification with the United Nations (UN) on October 2, it would take the total number of countries on board to 62 and the total greenhouse gas emissions covered to 51.59 per cent. The agreement requires 55 countries with at least 55 per cent of the emissions covered by ratifying nations.
The Union Cabinet decision comes on a day the European Union (EU) is fast-tracking negotiations within its member states, in the hopes of ratifying the pact en bloc by October 7.
Under the rules, the Paris Agreement would come into force 30 days after the two qualifying thresholds of countries and emissions covered are met. If the EU is able to ratify by October 7, this would ensure the threshold is met in time for the UN negotiations, beginning November 7 in Morocco, to formally launch the agreement operations.
While announcing the decision of the Cabinet on Wednesday, the government tried to pitch itself as a country continuing to play the leadership role in climate action. The swift Cabinet decision, coming within days of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement to ratify the pact, stood in deep contrast to the government’s earlier claims that procedural issues would impede ratification this year.
The caveats inserted during the Cabinet approval make India the 12th country to do so. While China and Belgium put caveats to cover their geographical territories, other countries have placed conditions and caveats to protect options of future international legal recourse. Small island nations such as Tuvalu and Micronesia have tried to retract from the terms they had to sign up for under the Paris Agreement. These and other small island countries, under pressure from the US and the EU, had forgone their rights to file for compensation, in case of inevitable damage caused by inaction of countries on climate change. But during their ratification process, some of these countries had asserted their legal rights — under other international laws to seek compensation — stand in place. The legal consequences of such assertions and caveats by countries such as India are yet to be analysed in light of the fact that Article 27 of the Paris Agreement explicitly states: “No reservations may be made to this Agreement.” The Indian ratification does not use the word ‘reservations’ but says India does so in a certain context.
The Union Cabinet’s ratification of the Paris agreement on climate change on Wednesday followed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement earlier this week that the country would submit its instrument of ratification to United Nations Secretary-General Ban KiMoon on October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The Paris agreement will come into force when at least 55 countries – accounting for 55 per cent of the world’s emissions – ratify the treaty. It has become clear that, with or without India, this threshold will be met. So the government’s decision to ratify the agreement is a smart turnaround. It had hoped, perhaps, to play hardball with the United States and China – both countries have ratified the pact recently – on the issue. India would have liked to use ratification as a pawn in its attempt to get into the Nuclear Suppliers Group — indicating, correctly, that its attempt to build a low-carbon economy depended crucially on secure access to atomic energy. However, any attempt to use the ratification as a bargaining counter would have been stillborn, given that the 55 per cent emissions threshold is now almost certain to be met by the end of the year. Thus the government has shown wisdom in reorienting its approach towards the treaty.
Mr Modi packaged India’s acceptance of the Paris programme in some intelligent politics. He first name-checked Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, one of the icons of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh – the forerunner of the Bharatiya Janata Party – by saying that Upadhyaya had always emphasised living in harmony with nature. He also emphasised that he had chosen October 2 because Gandhi’s life was an example of minimum carbon footprint, a reference to the sustainable lifestyle advocated by the Father of the Nation. Placing India’s commitment to carbon change in the context of Indian political history is a wise move. After all, this effort will take many years, and will require cross-party effort and consensus as well as cooperation from the public. India’s climate change targets are ambitious. The national action plan on climate change goes much further than a country at India’s level of development should have been expected to field. It intends to raise the mix of energy derived from sources other than fossil fuels to 40 per cent by 2030. This will require massive augmentation in wind and solar power capacity. It will also require restarting several hydroelectric energy projects, although this mode of generation has fallen out of favour.
The real challenge for India lies in upgrading the manufacturing sector and its existing thermal power plants. These two sectors will have to be made cleaner. But this is an expensive process and will significantly raise costs both for industry as well as the broader economy, an unenviable task at a time when the government is attempting to revive domestic manufacturing and make it competitive in order to generate jobs. The bitter truth is that India will fail to meet its Paris commitments unless these sectors are made cleaner. Thus climate diplomacy from India cannot end with the ratification of the Paris treaty. Technology and fund transfers are essential if these sectors are to be made greener, and the treaty conditions honoured. That must now become the focus of the government.