From “Spoiler” to “Bridging Nation”: The Reshaping of India’s Climate Diplomacy / By Dhanasree Jayaram

India has been central to the international climate order since the beginning of the climate change negotiations in 1992, especially in setting an equitable agenda and creating norms such as the Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR, 1992). Yet, it has been often labelled a “spoiler”, a tag that got emboldened at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen when India, along with China, Brazil and South Africa (BASIC), successfully thwarted the attempts of the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) to dilute the longstanding differentiation between Annex I parties (developed countries) and non-Annex I parties (developing and least developed countries) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Although the decision to adopt voluntary targets at the Copenhagen Summit – such as to reduce the emissions intensity of its gross domestic product (GDP) by 20-25 % against 2005 levels by 2020 – could be regarded as one of the first signs of shift in India’s positions in the international climate change negotiations, it is only in the run up to the 2015 Paris Summit (21st Conference of Parties or COP 21) that India’s willingness to be a global climate leader became more apparent. In fact, the President of the United States of America Donald J. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement has led many countries – or groups of countries – to come together to stabilise the global climate order, India being one among them. [1] India’s reinvigorated climate diplomacy towards the rest of the world is also an indication of its interest in being a part of the solution through consensus built in a just and equitable manner. This shift needs to be viewed alongside two major factors : domestically, increasing awareness of the dangers posed by climate change to the country, and globally, India’s desire to be an influential player with global responsibilities.

In this context, the paper delves into India’s positions on climate change since the Copenhagen Summit, leading up to the Paris Summit ; and how this is interrelated to its climate diplomacy at both international and bilateral levels, especially the climate change negotiations. From being considered a “spoiler”, India is now being regarded as a “conciliator” and a “bridging” nation. The paper explains how and why this transition has happened since 2009 – including an analysis of internal and external drivers of these shifts. It also charts the trajectory of India’s climate diplomacy in the light of increasing willingness of India to take upon the leadership role in the global climate order.

Shifts in India’s Climate Diplomacy

India has been frequently branded as a “spoiler” in various international forums, including the climate change negotiations. India, along with other emerging nations, was accused of “spoiling” the prospects of a consensual agreement at the 2009 Copenhagen Summit through a largely defensive posture. It must be noted that prior to the Copenhagen Summit, India had already launched its National Action Plan on Climate Change (2008) with specific national missions on solar energy, energy efficiency, sustainable habitat, Himalayan ecosystem, sustainable agriculture, “Green India” and strategic knowledge on climate change. [2] Under the stewardship of Jairam Ramesh, then Indian Minister of State (Independent Charge) at the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) – now Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) – not only did India adopt positions in contravention to its age-old stand on not agreeing to binding emissions cuts but also deviate slightly from its traditional narratives such as the one on “per capita emissions” [3] that it had been using to avoid legally binding commitments. At this stage, “progressive realists” and “progressive internationalists” had begun to overwhelm “growth first stonewallers” as the narratives pertaining to India’s climate policy had gradually shifted to greater understanding of India’s climate vulnerabilities, co-benefits of climate action as well as relevance of stronger Indian engagement in international processes like the climate change negotiations for opportunities in the latest technology for reducing carbon emissions, even though they may be unfair. [4]

India’s climate diplomacy has been reinvigorated further by the National Democratic Alliance Government – led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi –, which came to power in 2014. Considering that Prime Minister Modi himself authored a book on climate change and the need for addressing it urgently while serving as the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat, hopes were high that India would be more proactive when it comes to climate action under his leadership. [5] In fact, when the United States and China jointly announced that they would reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 26-28 % from 2005 levels by 2025 and peak its emissions by 2030 – albeit without specifying the level – respectively [6], there was pressure on India to follow suit. However, India did not make such announcements before the Paris Agreement, even while underscoring the sense of urgency in dealing with climate change. Modi’s assertion that India could not be pressurised into any decision by external forces was loud and clear. [7]

The mood changed when Modi integrated climate change with India’s foreign policy strategy and almost all his foreign visits began to focus on cooperation in the field of climate change as much as in other sectors like defence, trade, commerce and counter-terrorism among others. His visits to Germany, France and Canada in 2015 before the Paris Summit helped set the tone for India’s willingness to be an agenda-setter on the global stage. [8] In addition, domestically, many goals were declared targeted mainly at clean energy, even before the Government of India submitted its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) [9] to the UNFCCC. For instance, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stated in his budget speech in 2015 that India planned to “quadruple its renewable power capacity to 175 gigawatt (GW) by 2022”, with 100 GW alone has being proposed to be sourced from solar, 60 GW from wind, 10 GW from biomass and 5 GW from hydroelectricity. [10] Undoubtedly, India’s vision for energy access for all through renewable energy expansion influenced India’s climate diplomacy positions at the international level.

As the Paris Summit drew closer, India’s tag of being a “spoiler” slowly gave way to “bridging” nation – bridging “the many nations across the world” as well as bridging “development with climate action”. [11] At the same time, India was the centre of attention – in a rather negative sense – as both the industrialised and least developed countries saw India as a “challenge”. [12] India’s calls for climate justice – a fair share of carbon budget ; its attempts to accommodate “differentiation” in the agreed outcome – even in measuring, reporting and verification ; and its unwillingness to compromise on its coal production goals – 1.5 billion metric tons by 2020 – had already created an atmosphere of scepticism in terms of reaching a strong agreement. However, the Paris agreement was reached with “differentiation” in all aspects – mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology, capacity building and transparency – kept intact, even though “historical responsibility” was categorically not mentioned in the agreement, what many see as a compromise by India. [13]

This flexibility is a sign of India’s desire to be a part of the solution and seek partnerships, as evidenced by the launching of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) at the Paris Summit, which became a legal entity on 6 December 2017. The fact that the ISA is the first “treaty-based international government organisation to be based in India” is noteworthy. [14] As already mentioned, India has also signed multiple bilateral and multilateral deals with countries, including China, to enhance investments in clean energy, as well as assist other countries in tackling the effects of climate change. For instance, India has facilitated the launch of a project with the United Nations (UN) to develop climate early warning systems for building resilience in seven Pacific island countries – Tonga, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands, the Cook Islands, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia. [15]

Internal Drivers of India’s Climate Diplomacy

What many would argue is that there are no direct causal linkages between India’s domestic climate action and its international climate policy. While it might be true that India’s domestic actions have been rather independent of its positions on climate change internationally, it can also not be ruled out that the two complement each other in many ways. India’s climate diplomacy has been shaped by its conceptualisation of its “overall national interest over time”, with development-related goals and sovereignty concerns overpowering the need for climate action. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, India’s stance on climate change internationally was also strongly influenced by the “normative sentiment” that since climate change is a making of the industrialised world, the primary responsibility of tackling climate change rests with it rather than the developing world. [16] However, with increasing acknowledgement of the dangers posed by climate change to India, its position took a significant turn towards the end of 2000s – which some experts label as a shift from climate politics to climate policy. [17]

There are primarily three domestic drivers of shift in India’s climate diplomacy among others. First, the Government of India felt the need to generate unbiased and regionally focussed scientific knowledge about climate change in the wake of “a controversy surrounding an erroneous prediction of melting Himalayan glaciers by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” (IPCC), which led to the setting up of Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment in 2010. [18] Epistemic communities, including scientists, academics and environmentalists along with parliamentarians began to question the traditionally held positions of India in light of India’s climate vulnerabilities and a lack of climate action. In effect, the national capacity in knowledge-making in the field of climate change got a boost and resulted in greater understanding of the effects of climate change for the country from an Indian perspective. Moreover, the Indian media, mainly the English ones, also started to cover issues related to climate change more fervently – the result being that the educated masses started taking notice of the scale of the problem of climate change that the country faces and expect a certain degree of accountability from the government in environmental matters.

Second, personalities have played a critical role in breaking the continuity in India’s climate diplomacy positions. Although the Indian negotiating team has been led by various individuals – mainly diplomats –, it was under Jairam Ramesh that India went with a game-plan that allowed it to take the moral high-ground through voluntary emissions reduction targets, discarding India’s traditional strategy of hiding behind the low-per capita emissions argument to some extent. At the same time, the coming together of the BASIC countries was “masterminded” by him, in order to thwart any possibility of an agreement being reached that was not in the interests of the developing world. Jairam Ramesh proposed that “India should delink finance and technology from pursuing any national mitigation objectives” as a negotiating position, but this was opposed by some of the key members of the Indian negotiating team, according to whom this would be an “unconditional surrender”. [19] During his time, domestically too, India took several steps that sought to replace the narrative of “environment versus development” with “environment and development”, and focus on “adhering to rules, regulations, and laws” instead of “taking the rules, regulations, and laws for granted.” [20] He also used the platform of the Parliament to bring to the attention of its members of India’s high vulnerability to climate change, based mainly on three factors – dependence on monsoons, Himalayan glacial recession and fragility of ecological areas such as the Western Ghats. [21]

Third, the driver is that of co-benefits of mitigation efforts, recognition of which have resulted in tying of climate and energy goals, especially under Modi, has been a crucial factor in shaping India’s climate diplomacy. Spurred by the industry – groups such as the Confederation of Indian Industry –, India’s greater engagement with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol (KP) coupled with growing business opportunities in clean energy and energy efficiency became a cornerstone of the co-benefits approach adopted by the establishment. [22] On the one hand, mitigation actions can significantly benefit other sectors such as health by reducing pollution levels ; aid poverty alleviation programmes ; as well as stimulate further growth through initiatives such as “Make in India” [23], which has a strong focus on clean energy. And on the other hand, energy transition began to be seen as the best possible option to improve operational efficiency of sectors and reduce costs considerably. It must be noted that the Government of India views renewable energy as a tool for securing energy supplies, reducing dependence on energy imports and ensuring access for all, which is clearly reflected in its deep-rooted interest in the ISA as well.

External Drivers of India’s Climate Diplomacy

Although the internal changes played a significant part in shaping India’s climate diplomacy in the post-Copenhagen era, it is the international system that propelled India’s decisiveness and proactiveness at the climate change negotiations even more. Also, India’s climate policy is seen as a “sub-set of its foreign policy agenda”. In this respect, its climate diplomacy strategy has been moulded by three factors, which may not be exhaustive but have been more decisive.

First, there has been a direct correlation between India’s foreign policy and its climate diplomacy agenda. Its aspiration of becoming a global player with greater responsibility and stake in governance of global issues hinges to a great extent on its positions on climate change. In fact, for long, India’s uncompromising attitude towards “strategic autonomy” left the country out of materially beneficial partnerships with other countries as well as from international discussion forums on managing the global commons. [24] However, the rise of the emerging economies like India and China – which in India’s case was spurred by its economy’s liberalisation in 1991 – along with the relative “decline” of the West, particularly in the aftermath of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, led to the belief that it was high time that countries like India and China had a greater say in forums such as the climate change negotiations, whose agenda had largely been dictated by the West until then. It is at this point that India’s engagement with groups like BASIC, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and so on got fructified – questioning the existing West-dominated Bretton Woods-based institutions. Modi has clearly envisioned India to be not only a part of the solution when it comes to climate change, but also a potential global climate leader that is capable of setting the agenda on climate-related issues, as evidenced by his proclamations in the run-up to the 2015 Paris Summit. He has paved the way for a pragmatic and result-oriented approach towards climate diplomacy, which recognises the need for being flexible and being aware of trade-offs, without compromising on India’s core interests.

Second, at the climate change negotiations, India has remained isolated most of the time. International pressure on India has been immense since the Copenhagen Summit to adopt legally binding emissions reduction targets. Although in Copenhagen, the BASIC countries came together to ensure continuity of the CBDR principle and pursue their demand for equity and justice, especially in terms of climate finance and technology transfer, the unity among them ruptured the very next year at the Cancun Summit, despite the fact that their fidelity to these norms remained firm. Brazil and South Africa decided to express solidarity with other Latin American and African countries respectively – including the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and the least developed countries –, in pressing for a strong universal agreement on climate action. Thereafter, China also set a different tone by agreeing to espouse a bottom-up approach to mitigation – putting forth elaborate pledges. China had already been on the defensive as it had become the world’s largest emitter in 2007 – continues to be so – and its per capita emissions match that of the EU – at 7.2 tonnes, only 0.3 tonnes less than the level in EU. [25] India, on the one hand, needed China by its side to influence decision-making but on the other, remained cautious about being hyphenated with China due to the latter’s high-emissions profile. India’s isolation got further bolstered by – first, the emergence of G-2 (the United States and China) and second, the joint announcement of Barack Obama and Xi Jinping in 2014 – a preparatory initiative ahead of the Paris Summit. India was once again cornered at the Paris Summit over its goal of doubling coal production by 2020 [26]. It was largely felt that it was a diplomatic coup on the behest of India that managed to seal the Paris Agreement despite developed countries’ opposition to the former’s demands of streamlining differentiation throughout the Paris Agreement. [27]

Third, India has always attempted to champion the cause of the developing world’s interests. In this respect, it strives to supplement its story of “rising” India or “risen” India with the leadership tag. India has faced flak from its own neighbours, like the Maldives and Bangladesh, for not committing enough on the climate change front. China’s ability to influence other developing and least developed countries – particularly among the G-77 – has been substantially enhanced by its rapid advancements in renewable energy and its soft power push by pouring money into them. It is the country with resources – in this case, renewable and clean resources – that will have an edge in leading the global climate change governance machinery than those without them ; India lags well behind China. Even when the Trump administration announced its decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the majority of analysts looked up to China as the power that could fill the vacuum. [28] In the meantime, India progressively built up its position in the global climate order through the ISA and unwavering support to the Paris Agreement. India has taken several steps to bring not just the developing countries but also the developed countries on to a single platform and provide collective climate leadership, which is both a moral and practical solution. At the 2017 G-20 Summit (Hamburg), Modi proposed the “coalition of the willing” and emphasised the importance of BRICS to tackling issues like climate change. He has time again, highlighted the need for India to be an agendasetter – gradually an agenda-mover – in international relations, no less than other major powers.

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A collective leadership strategy, which is less hierarchical, is indeed the key to eliminating various uncertainties in global climate governance. India’s status as a “bridging” nation and a leading player in global climate governance is only expected to grow in the coming years as it largely seeks to exploit this strategy that is not detrimental to any nation state’s interests. While domestically it continues to promote the idea of energy access for all, which remains one of the biggest priorities of the present administration, it is also going an extra mile to ensure that the transition to renewable energy is quicker and more efficient. Internationally, Indian leaders have repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that environmental protection, conservation and preservation are not new to Indian ethos. This is the right time to ensure that the rich environmental history of India is preserved through environmental actions that do not necessarily pose any risk to the administration’s obligation to provide electricity, shelter and other amenities to a large section of the country’s population that still does not have access to them. [29]

India has stepped forward time and again to pledge its allegiance to a “rulesbased global order”, driven by mutual interests. It has also forged a myriad of bilateral and multilateral cooperative arrangements to promote climate action regionally as well as globally. Modi’s second book on climate change – Convenient Action : Continuity for Change – was released during the Paris Summit alongside the ISA’s launch. The book outlines Modi’s proposal of “building on a model of positive partnership between people, businesses, scientific community, government and NGOs” with a focus on “delivering clean energy and prosperity through site-dependent initiatives and scaling up efforts to make rapid transformation.” [30] Through partnerships and collaborations, India seeks to replace the Western model of zero-sum to a win-win model, which is a necessity in global climate governance based on climate ethics and climate justice.

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• [1] See also in this issue : Alice Baillat, « De la vulnérabilité au weak power : le Bangladesh face au changement climatique ».
• [2] Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change, “National Action Plan on Climate Change”, Government of India, 2008.
• [3] India has always argued that since India’s per capita emissions stand at 1.9 tonnes – far behind most of the developed and even developing countries – there are no morally justifiable grounds for demanding binding emissions cuts from India. Country-wise per capita emissions data is available on “EDGAR : Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research”.
• [4] Navroz K. Dubash, “Toward a Progressive Indian and Global Climate Politics”, CPR Working Paper, 1 September 2009.
• [5] Narendra Modi, Convenient Action : Gujarat’s Response to Challenges of Climate Change, New Delhi, Macmillan, 2010.
• [6] Mark Landler, “U.S. and China Reach Climate Accord after Months of Talks”, The New York Times, 11 November 2014.
• [7] Vishwa Mohan, “Obama-Modi Climate Deal : Unlike China, No Emission Target for India”, The Times of India, 26 January 2015.
• [8] Press Trust of India, “India will Set Climate Change Conference Agenda : Narendra Modi”, The Indian Express, 14 April 2015.
• [9] Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) constitutes the publicly outlined post-2020 climate actions that countries intended to take under the Paris Agreement. The INDC (communication) becomes NDC or Nationally Determined Contribution, once a country submits its respective instrument of ratification, accession, or approval to join the Paris Agreement.
• [10] Ganesh Nagarajan, “India to Quadruple Renewable Capacity to 175 Gigawatts by 2022”, Bloomberg, 28 February 2015.
• [11] Anjali Jaiswal, “Paris Climate Agreement Explained : India Focus”, Natural Resources Defense Council, 12 December 2015.
• [12] G. Ananthakrishnan, “Kerry Finds India ‘Positive’ at Paris Climate Conference”, The Hindu, 9 December 2015.
• [13] Amitabh Sinha, “Paris Climate Talks : Differentiation of Developed and Developing Stays, India Happy”, The Indian Express, 14 December 2015.
• [14] Utpal Bhaskar, “International Solar Alliance becomes India’s Calling Card on Climate Change”, Livemint, 6 December 2017.
• [15] “India to Help Pacific with Climate Change”, RNZ, 5 September 2017.
• [16] Sandeep Sengupta, “International Climate Negotiations and India’s Role”, in Navroz Dubash (ed.), Handbook of Climate Change and India : Development, Politics and Governance, Abingdon, Earthscan, 2012.
• [17] Navroz K. Dubash and Lavanya Rajamani, “Multilateral Diplomacy on Climate Change”, in David M. Malone, C. Raja Mohan and Srinath Raghavan (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy, New York, Oxford University Press, 2015.
• [18] Martin Mahony, “The predictive state : Science, territory and the future of the Indian climate”, Social Studies of Science, v. 44, n. 1, September 2013, p. 109.
• [19] Padmaparna Ghosh, “Stance on climate change splits govt”, Livemint, 20 October 2009.
• [20] Jairam Ramesh, Green Signals : Ecology, Growth, and Democracy in India, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2015.
• [21] Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, “Discussion regarding Impact of Climate Change”, Lok Sabha Debates, 3 December 2009.
• [22] Jagadish Thaker and Anthony Leiserowitz, “Shifting discourses of climate change in India”, Climatic Change, v. 123, n. 2, Springer, 2014.
• [23] “Make in India” is an initiative launched by the Government of India in September 2014 to “transform India into a global design and manufacturing hub”. It covers 25 sectors of the economy, including “renewable energy”, with a focus on encouraging companies to manufacture their products in India with minimum impact on the environment.
• [24] Aniruddh Mohan, “From Rio to Paris : India in global climate politics”, Rising Powers Quarterly, v. 2, n. 3, Marmara University Faculty of Political Sciences, 2017.
• [25] Jos G.J. Oliver, Greet Janssens-Maenhout and Jeroen A.H.W. Peters, Trends in Global CO2 Emissions : 2012 Report, The Hague/Bilthoven, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 2012.
• [26] PTI, “Paris deal window dressing as India to double coal production”, Financial Express, 15 December 2015.
• [27] Lavanya Rajamani, “Ambition and Differentiation in the 2015 Paris Agreement : Interpretative Possibilities and Underlying Politics”, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, v. 65, n. 2, British Institute of International and Comparative Law, 2016.
• [28] Leah Stokes, Noelle Selin and Amanda Giang, “Green Leadership from a Divided South ? China and India’s Divergence Shape Outlook for International Negotiations”, New Security Beat, 5 December 2016.
• [29] See Dhanasree Jayaram, “Five reasons why India can be a global climate leader”, Sunday Guardian, 5 August 2017, for an overview of India’s climate action and its quest for leadership in the climate arena.
• [30] Narendra Modi, “PM authors ‘Convenient Action- Continuity for Change”, 9 December 2015.