Climate change at COP30: What should India do?

If most countries are unlikely to make strong commitments, it is relevant to ask whether India should also hold back. Climate change is too important for us to take this course

- MONTEK SINGH AHLUWALIA

Climate change has been driven off the headlines by other more immediate problems: the Russia-Ukraine war, the continuing conflict in Gaza, and the Trump tariffs. But the problem of global warming has not gone away. It will return to the centre stage when the UN Climate Change Conference, COP30, meets in November 2025 in Brazil.

The problems facing COP30 What can we realistically expect from COP30? A major problem is that the combined mitigation commitments agreed to by all countries in COP26 will not keep global warming within the limits decided. The ideal 1.5-degree Celsius limit is likely to be breached in the next five years, and unless much stronger action is taken, global warming could touch at least 2.4°C by the end of the century.

Countries were asked to submit a stronger set of mitigation commitments well before COP30 for the period 20252035. Very few have done so. The US, under the Biden administration, did propose that US net GHG emissions would be reduced by 61-66 per cent compared to the base of 2005 and then decline to net zero by 2050. However, with President Trump taking the US out of the Paris Agreement, this commitment no longer holds.

European countries have their own problems. They are under severe fiscal strain because of the need to step up defence expenditure. The Ukraine-Russia conflict also has them concerned about energy security.