At United Nations climate summit, India to flex its negotiating muscles

BENGALURU, India — As countries gathered in Scotland were crystallizing their pledges at last year’s United Nations climate conference, India used its might to intervene. Along with China, India took issue with the draft deal’s suggestion to “phase out” coal, preferring the wording, “phase down.”

After much back and forth and hurried discussions between leaders, Bhupendra Yadav, India’s minister for environment, forests, and climate change, read out the final version. It said that nations should work toward a “phase down” of coal power.

The intervention was, for India’s government, a success.

Now the country is expected to exercise its influence yet again to look out for its own interests at the upcoming U.N. climate conference in Egypt, known as COP27.

“India has always played a key role in climate negotiations and I think Egypt will be the same,” said Navroz Dubash, a lead author of various U.N. climate reports and a long-time observer of climate policy and governance.

Indian leaders say the nation requires billions of dollars to enable its clean energy transition and will push for better financing for developing countries at the summit. India has made many of its carbon emission goals conditional on receiving this financial help. Being both a climate vulnerable as well as a high emitting country, experts say India occupies a unique position on the global climate policy negotiating table.

About 80 percent of India’s population live in regions highly vulnerable to extreme disasters like severe flooding or heat waves, according to a 2021 study by the climate think-tank Council on Energy, Environment and Water based in New Delhi. Meanwhile, the nation is currently the world’s third biggest emitter of carbon dioxide behind China and the U.S., according to latest estimates.

A key issue for India at COP27 will be how to finance both adapting to climate change and limiting fossil fuel emissions, according to a senior Indian government official who will be involved in the negotiations. The official, from the

Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, responded to written questions from The Associated Press. The official was not named, keeping in line with ministry protocols.

India wants the $100 billiona-year pledge of climate funds for developing countries, a promise made in 2009 that hasn’t yet been fulfilled despite being two years past its deadline, to be assessed, according to the official. Other questions around financing, such as what happens to climate funding in the long term, what contributions rich countries will make to poorer ones and how to make finance flows consistent with global temperature limit goals, also need to be addressed, they added. No other country will see a bigger increase in energy demand than India in the coming years, and it is estimated that the nation will need $223 billion to meet its 2030 clean energy targets.

“India has made it adequately clear that it is the historical responsibility of rich countries to provide the necessary climate funding,” said the senior Indian government official. Historically, it is the U.S. and European nations that have contributed the most carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere. Estimates for how much it will cost to move to clean energy and industry practices globally and help vulnerable communities adapt vary, but are in the trillions of dollars.

Leading up to COP27, India had announced its new climate plan saying the country will aim to achieve half of its energy requirements from non-fossil fuel-based energy sources by the year 2030. Currently, 42 percent of the country’s installed electricity capacity is from nonfossil fuel sources.