India, a leader of the developing world, on Friday strongly opposed attempts from developed countries to prioritise climate change-related issues at the G20 discussions without a consensus within the influential bloc comprising 20 major global economies. New Delhi described such attempts pushing for a ‘green recovery’ with stringent conditionalities as one that will amount to a form of ‘green colonisation’ at a time when the developing world was vulnerable on account of the COVID-19 pandemic and was looking at somehow recovering from the aftermath of the global health crisis.
“We do have the Paris agreement (on climate change mitigation) and we need to adhere to that. The great danger of putting it in G20 and that too without a consensus (among G20 members), is actually diluting it. Far from helping the cause, it would instead be a diversion from what was agreed by everybody (in the Paris agreement) and would end up in a parallel track,” said Dr. Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, India.
He was speaking at a webinar organised by the think-tank RIS on “Priorities for Growth and Stability in Post-COVID World: Role of G20 Framework Working Group.”
Climate change was a serious issue, but should not be confused with the immediate objective of economic revival post the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, Sanyal said, adding, however, that some of the revival package could be directed towards meeting the climate change-related concerns. He said the link between climate change and the pandemic was far from established as pandemics happen from time to time whether or not climate change occurs. He added that the response to the pandemic should be science-based and not one filled with rhetorical flourishes. He said India was adhering to its climate change commitments and was willing to do more, adding that New Delhi was uncomfortable with certain efforts to bring climate change issues to the G20 forum as there was no agreement on the same.
Besides, there was an issue about “who decides what is green”, Sanyal said. The issue was important because once a system of rigid ideas (of what is considered as ‘green’) was established for the rating agencies to be then seen as credit-worthy or not, there would be problems on account of mechanical application of that thinking process as seen in debt restructuring, he said. The pro-cyclicality of the ratings process “causes and worsens the shock from a crisis”, he pointed out. “If you do the same thing here (on climate change issues), a rigid system with ‘green-rating agencies’ becoming the equivalent of credit-rating agencies, there is a danger of all kinds of unintended consequences being built into the system, not to mention the high likelihood that such agencies almost certainly will be emanating out of developed countries,” he said. Unless there was a democratic spread of green rating agencies across the w orld, and a ‘green’ framework agreed by all the countries, there is a genuine danger that the world will end up with a form of ‘green colonisation’, Sanyal said.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. P. Harish, Additional Secretary (Economic Relations), Ministry of External Affairs, India, said India was the only G20 country that has met the Paris climate change agreement commitments. Referring to the move to establish a new goal post outside the Paris framework in the G20 or in some other framework, he said there was a developmental cost to taking on such new commitments outside the Paris framework. There was nothing on the table regarding what all would constitute the USD 100 billion climate finance for developing nations (by 2020 and set a higher annual goal by 2025), and whether every Official Development Assistance would be added to this number, as well as regarding technology transfer commitments, he said. Even if carbon emissions peak at 2050, the net total of emissions of India will be less than that of China, the US and the European Union, he said. “It would not be correct to ignore the historic case load and the developmen tal situation, where India’s per capita GDP is 5% of that of the G7 countries, and a fraction of the overall G20 per capita, and that India’s low per capita energy consumption,” he pointed out. Constraining India’s options at this point through other extra conditionalities will impose a huge financial and developmental cost, Harish said.
Prof. Sachin Chaturvedi, Director General, RIS, chaired the session, while Prof. Kevin Gallagher, Professor of Global Development Policy, Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University, Mr. Federico Bonaglia, Deputy Director, OECD Development Centre, Paris and Dr. Priyadarshi Dash, Associate Professor, RIS, also spoke on the occasion. (ENDS)