BANGALORE, India (AP) – India on Thursday officially takes over the presidency of the group of the world’s 20 largest economies for next year, putting climate at the top of the group’s priorities.
According to experts, some of the crucial areas the Asian country will focus on during its presidency are programs to promote sustainability and allocate resources so nations can adopt clean energy and address the impacts of a world with rising temperatures. Some believe India will also use its new position to improve its climate footprint and bridge the interests of developed and developing countries.
The country has made significant progress towards its climate goals in recent years, but is currently one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases.
The G20, made up of the world’s largest economies, has a rotating presidency, with each year a different member state responsible for setting the group’s agenda and priorities. Some experts believe India will use the “big stage” of the G20 presidency to advance its climate and development plans.
The country will have “a strong focus on responding to current and future climate change challenges,” said Samir Saran, president of the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank. The ORF coordinates the T-20, a group of research centers from 20 member countries whose participants meet within the framework of the G20.
Saran said India will work to ensure money flows from rich developed nations to emerging economies to help them fight global warming, for example by pledging $100 billion a year to poorer countries to invest in clean energy and to adapt to climate change, which has not yet been achieved, and a recent commitment to vulnerable countries to set up an extreme weather damage fund.
He said India will also use its presidency to promote its flagship program, Mission Life, which promotes a more sustainable lifestyle in what is expected to soon become the world’s most populous country.
When Indonesia, which held the presidency, symbolically handed it over to India in Bali last month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the opportunity to promote the scheme, saying it would make “an enormous contribution” to promoting sustainable living to make a massive move.
The influence of lifestyle “hasn’t received enough attention in the global discourse as it should,” said RR Rashmi, a distinguished fellow at the Institute of Energy Research in New Delhi. He added that the issue “could gain some prominence” at the G20, which would be a win for the Indian government, but critics say the focus on lifestyle changes needs political support to be credible.
India has strengthened its climate credentials, with recent domestic renewable energy adoption targets even more ambitious than those it gave to the United Nations as a signatory to the Paris Agreement, which requires countries to show how they are respectfully limiting temperature rises want to achieve the goals agreed in 2015.
Some analysts say nations’ climate ambitions and actions — including India — are not in line with agreed-upon temperatures.
Many of India’s big industrialists are investing heavily in renewable energy, both domestically and globally, but the Indian government is also preparing to invest $33 billion in coal-fired power plants over the next four years.
At last month’s UN climate conference, India – now the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases – proposed phasing out all fossil fuels and repeatedly stressed the need to rethink global climate finance. The country says it cannot meet its climate goals and cut carbon emissions without receiving significantly more funding from wealthier nations, a claim these countries dispute.
Navroz Dubash, author of several UN climate reports and a professor at the Center for Policy Research, said a crucial question for many countries is how “emerging economies are addressing development needs and doing so in a low-carbon path”. Some from the south of the world, like India, point out that external investment is necessary.
In the G20 presidency, India is in a good position “to say what we need to develop in such a way that the remaining carbon budget is not tied up,” Dubash added, referring to the amount of carbon the world can emit while curbing global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
“Developing countries are making compelling arguments that green industrial policy is indeed heavily dependent on having public money available to address the issues,” Dubash said. Some experts say that by 2030, more than $2 trillion will be needed each year to help developing countries reduce their emissions and manage the impacts of climate change: $1 trillion from domestic sources and other external sources such as developing countries or multilateral development banks.
“This public money can also be a way to attract private money, which Washington has done with its Inflation Reduction Act,” Dubash added. The US flagship climate package passed this year includes incentives to build clean energy infrastructure.
According to experts, the G20 will also examine in detail alternative strategies for raising climate finance. The group could follow the example of the Bridgetown Initiative proposed by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, which involves the release of large sums of money from multilateral development banks and international financial institutions to help countries adapt to climate change and transition to cleaner climates energy to help.
ORF’s Saran said India, as chair of the G20, could advance talks on this initiative. It is common for developing countries to be charged higher interest rates when borrowing from global financial institutions. For Saran, rebalancing global finances to make renewable energy more affordable in the developing world is key to curbing climate change.
The idea has gained in importance in the industrialized nations. French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed his support.
“In the future, a significant portion of emissions will come from developing countries,” Saran said. “By easing their transition to clean energy, we can avoid those emissions.”
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Sibi Arasu is on Twitter as: @sibi123
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