As COP presidency eludes Indians, allies needed to advance climate change goals

India will be working closely to deliver a COP of Action and a COP for All.

With less than seven months to go for the 28^th United Nations Conference of Parties (COP28) on climate change, the wheel has come full circle on Indian involvement in COPs during the last 28 years. With a global population of 32.1 million ethnic Indians, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), and their achievements spread across all walks of life, it is surprising that only two Indian-origin persons have been COP Presidents since the UN Climate Change Conference began in 1995. It has since become an annual gathering, rising in importance and levels of international participation.

The first Indian COP President was TR Baalu in 2002, when India hosted the conference in New Delhi. Baalu was the Minister for Environment and Forests in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Recognising a greater need for climate action by India, that portfolio has since been renamed as the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. The name change, a top priority for the just-elected government in 2014, was formalised on the third day of Narendra Modi’s prime ministership.

Finding Allies

Nearly two decades after Baalu, the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Alok Sharma, was chosen as COP President by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government. COP26 was held in Glasgow in October-November 2021. By that time, the duration of COPs had increased from one week to a fortnight, and sometimes longer, due to contentious climate issues which eluded compromises at the Summits. Sharma was born in Agra, but has lived in the UK since he was five years old. Ethnic Indians have reached dizzy heights of success in corporate boardrooms, politics, science, economics – what have we – but environment is one area where such achievements have not come their way. At least in one case an Indian environmentalist was discredited and lost his way after achieving global fame and recognition.

For India, the next best option as a keenly interested player on climate issues is to find like-minded countries and environmentalists and work with them to advance New Delhi’s goals, and more importantly, protect its critical interests. When the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) announced in November 2021 that the United Arab Emirates will host the COP28, the news was received in New Delhi with immense satisfaction. By then, the UAE had become one of India’s most important partners in external affairs under a focused drive by the Modi government to deepen and expand relations with member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Close Bonds 

In January this year, Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber, the UAE’s experienced Special Envoy for Climate Change, who has participated in at least 10 previous COPs was named President-designate of this year’s climate talks, which will take place in Dubai’s sparkling new Expo City from November 30 to December 12. Among Al Jaber’s multiple responsibilities in his country: Chairman of Masdar, the UAE's trail-blazing renewable energy company, Minister for Industry and Advanced Technology and Group CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). Shortly after assuming his new role in COP28, Al Jaber made his first overseas trip to Bengaluru, where he unveiled his agenda before an international assembly at the India Energy Week. The visit and his pro-growth, pro-climate vision vindicated India’s decision to work with like-minded climate activists from all countries. Al Jaber is one of the most visited ministers from abroad to India in the last few years and his chemistry with India’s leadership is well-known. This chemistry was once again evident this week in Berlin when Al Jaber met India’s Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav at the annual Petersberg Climate Dialogue hosted by the German government.

Seven years since the historic Paris Climate Agreement, 2023 is the year of the first Global Stocktake that will measure progress since that agreement, which legally binds all nations for the first time to combat climate change. Yadav and Al Jaber shared views in Berlin especially during a “Strategic Dialogue on Global Stocktake and Roadmap for Global Transformation.” Al Jaber did not hesitate to call the spade a spade in Berlin. “The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report has already made it crystal clear that we are way off track,” he said. “This is a moment of clarity that we must face with total honesty.”

Securing India’s Interest

Declarations by the President-designate of COP28 in the last four months have also shown that the interests of India and other developing countries are better safeguarded by making common cause with those like Al Jaber. “Developing countries are still waiting for the 100 billion dollars promised by developed countries 14 years ago,” Al Jaber reminded rich nations this week. “This is holding up progress, and as part of my outreach, I am requesting donor countries to provide a definitive assessment on the delivery of this commitment before COP28.”

In 1995, when the first COP convened in Berlin, Angela Merkel was freshly reunified Germany’s Minister for Environment. She was appointed President of COP1. She worked with the Indians who were in Berlin, led by TP Sreenivasan, who had been elected Chairman of the Group of Seventy-Seven (G77) developing countries. It was Merkel’s success at COP1, her first job in her reunited nation, which eventually led the way to Merkel becoming Germany’s Chancellor. The wheel has now come full circle with the prospect of India working closely with Al Jaber “to deliver a COP of Action and a COP for All,” as he puts it.

KP Nayar has extensively covered West Asia and reported from Washington as a foreign correspondent for 15 years. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.