BENGALURU: As countries gathered in Scotland were crystallizing their pledges at last year's United Nations climate conference, India used its might to intervene.

Along with China, India took issue with the draft deal's suggestion to "phase out" coal, preferring the wording, "phase down."

After much back and forth and hurried discussions between leaders, Bhupendra Yadav, India's minister for environment, forests, and climate change, read out the final version. It said that nations should work towards a “phase down” of coal power.

The intervention was, for India's government, a success.

Now the country is expected to exercise its influence yet again to look out for its own interests at the upcoming U.N. climate conference in Egypt, known as COP27.

"India has always played a key role in climate negotiations and I think Egypt will be the same," said Navroz Dubash, a lead author of various U.N. climate reports and a long-time observer of climate policy and governance.

Indian leaders say the country needs billions of dollars to make the clean energy transition possible and that the summit will provide better financial assistance to developing countries. India has stipulated many of its carbon emission targets to receive this financial support.

A key issue for India at COP27 will be how to finance both adapting to climate change and limiting fossil fuel emissions, according to a senior Indian government official who will be involved in the negotiations.

India wants the $100 billion-a-year pledge of climate funds for developing countries, a promise made in 2009 that has not yet been fulfilled despite being two years past its deadline, to be assessed, according to the official.

"India has made it adequately clear that it is the historical responsibility of rich countries to provide the necessary climate funding," said the senior Indian government official.

Historically, it is the U.S. and European nations that have contributed the most carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere.

Leading up to COP27, India announced its new climate plan saying the country will aim to achieve half of its energy requirements from non-fossil fuel-based energy sources by the year 2030. Currently, about 42% of the total electricity of the country is generated from non-fossil fuel sources.

The investments in renewable energy, although on an upward trend, need significant scaling up. There is a funding gap. This gap needs to be met by international climate public financing to attract investors in the renewable energy domain,” said the Indian government official.

Compensation for poor countries from rich, high-polluting nations for the destruction caused by climate change, known as "loss and damage" in climate negotiations will be a key agenda item for many developing countries, including India.

According to the World Bank, 750 million people in South Asia have been affected by at least one natural disaster in the past two decades.

The NGO Germanwatch has ranked India seventh among countries most affected by extreme weather in 2019, noting that massive floods that year caused damage of around $10 billion, claiming 1,800 lives and displacing around 1.8 million people.

Long-term observers of climate diplomacy say India, like many other countries, is straddling climate goals and boosting standards of living.

“There are some groups of countries which tend to think that all the financing for fossil fuels should be stopped and should be restricted. The problem with this, among other things, is that it ignores the efforts to achieve the sustainable development goals that many countries are making,” said RR Rashmi, a distinguished fellow at The Energy Research Institute in New Delhi.

He added that moving away from fossil fuels “has to be a country-driven process. It is best left to them to decide which sectors to address first rather than addressing it globally.”

Many observers say this year's conference will be "in-between COP," as many of the deadlines set for climate change goals have either passed or are not due until later years.

For the most part, experts say India is keeping its cards close to its chest.

India will have to balance "what the country is willing to put on the table in terms of pledges, policies, and commitments" and how much they are willing to spend, said Dubash. "So we (India) don't want to do something that would lock ourselves into something costly unless there's a promise of finance."

Source: AP News