How Modi's speech at COP21 silenced the West
India's stand on the climate change issue seems to be similar to what New Delhi has been saying on terrorism: the West not heeding to Indian cries and realising their mistakes only after paying dearly.
The narrative of the West has always been biased. They have always projected India and China to be the third largest and the largest polluters respectively and urged the countries to reduce carbon emissions, even at the cost of their industrial development and poverty alleviation. However, the western narrative ignores the fact that the US is the biggest polluter on a per capita basis, while India's per capita carbon emissions are as low as ten percent of the US.
The per capita emissions statistics offer an interesting comparison, which shows the following figures: US - 16.6, Saudi Arabia 16.6, Canada - 15.7, Russia - 12.6, Germany - 10.2, US - 7.5, Italy - 6.4, France - 5.7, Iran - 5.3 and India - 1.7. It can be seen that India is way below in comparison to the so-called "advanced nations".
The dominance and monopoly of the advanced countries of the world have always made growth a retarded phenomenon for the developing countries. The Paris Climate Summit seems to have given a platform to the less-privileged countries to vent out their feelings.
India, which is a developing country and an important one on the global scene, has rightly maintained a considered uncompromising stand at the summit. Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a short and slick speech at the summit, candidly making known India's stand. He stressed yardsticks cannot be the same for everyone. He demanded that responsibility be fixed and each country should commit its role in fighting the climate issue collectively. Modi minced no words in holding the advanced countries responsible for the climatic disaster that planet Earth is facing.
India's stand that agreement without differentiation would be morally wrong may not impress the West, but will see many happily disagreeing from the developed world.
Modi's stand of unwillingness to budge and resolve to stand for the poor countries followed a series of meetings he had with P5 leaders like Barack Obama and David Cameron.
Modi clearly said "India needs to grow as 300 million people are still without access to energy. We are determined to do so." He pointed out that India would not agree to a Paris agreement without a clear differentiation in responsibilities and action between the rich and the developing worlds in all elements of the proposed deal such as mitigation, adaptation and transparency."
Rich nations are keen on diluting differentiation in the Paris agreement and have, instead, a universal agreement for all 196 nations who are party to the climate convention.
The prime minister spoke on almost all elements of the proposed deal including mitigation, adaptation, technology transfer, proposed transparency mechanism, eloquently elaborating India's point of view. India's stand, however, will not find many happy backers from the advanced world.
Modi did not agree to the efforts of the developed nations to place curbs on coal fuel usage. He warned against any attempt to impose barriers to economic grown in the name of climate change by curbing use of coal, which was the conventional energy. He urged the developed nations to do more to fight climate change and offer the remaining carbon space to the developing nations to develop.
During his meeting with Barack Obama, Modi assured that India will fulfil its responsibilities on climate change while simultaneously ensuring development. Obama too agreed that India had to be able to grow and fight poverty.
The Indian crusade on the climate front could be seen as a confident stand and a changed behaviour indicating strength of character of one of the biggest economies of the world. With the role India is playing at various levels in the world economy, particularly with important developed nations, India's stand, though could be seen as too rigid, will find silent backers.
It can also be said that developing nations, particularly China and India which are the future of the world economy, could play a much more decisive role in the current emerging world scene and offer direction to the future trends in global power balance.