Deep and effective India UK cooperation would add immense value to the global climate action agenda. India, as the biggest developing emitter and the UK, as a member of the G7 represent the two opposing blocs of the CBDR narrative. Together, this partnership could impress upon both blocs the urgency and transparency required to fulfil the mammoth tasks that lay ahead of us to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius target.
In order to meet this target and the interim milestones on this pathway, a partnership framework between India and the UK that aligns individual strands of strategic and multilateral priorities with elements of climate change and energy would be a big step forward.
Beyond the existing collaboration avenues of energy transition, resilience, climate finance etc., India and UK could work together on the following to strengthen bilateral and international cooperation in climate action:
- 1. Identifying elements for a reformed multilateral architecture focused on monitoring and implementation
- 2. Learning best practices from the UK’s Climate Change Committee to establish a new climate governance institution in India.
- 3. Framing ground rules for the Global Stocktake in 2023
- 4. Synergizing the bilateral trade agenda with mutual climate priorities
Other avenues for potential India UK climate collaboration, bilaterally and internationally, include cooperation under the aegis of ISA and CDRI, exploring the future of food security, cross border linkages between climate and air quality, governance of geoengineering and regulation of fourth generation nuclear reactors.
Observing the strides made domestically in the UK in recent years with regards to using the climate lens across sectors points to the accountability created in the country that has the COP Presidency. India could consider offering to host a COP to energize climate action planning at all levels domestically.
- Making commitments real and meaningful – in the calculus of global emissions target planning, commitments of all countries are interdependent and the metric of success is contingent on the willingness of each individual country to fulfil their end.
- This interdependence necessitates deep and multi-layered international cooperation in areas like intellectual property, finance, the policy systems that facilitate private finance, public – private partnership arrangements in the fields of backup insurance for the risks being taken by governments etc.
- The existing international framework is not structured to monitor and ensure implementation of an exercise this enormous. Thus, we need a re-configured institutional framework which is more effective, integrative and transparent:
Recently, strides have been made in the global current of climate actions, commitments and target achievements. While we celebrate these landmarks which seemed improbable a decade ago, we need to insist upon reminding each other of the sheer magnitude of the endeavour we are yet to undertake on our path to an impossible target – bringing global emissions down to net zero by 2060.
Getting from here to there involves colossal transformation within countries on almost everything they do. Imminently, this will involve: