India’s demand to ‘phase down’ coal is a principle enshrined in Paris Agreement

Western media has largely termed this as watering down of an important clause on coal and fossil fuels. But from the context of developing countries, it is only a fair ask to differentiate the actions to be taken by countries based on historical responsibility and their contribution to the climate crisis.

The sustained absence of equity

But India’s intervention was not the first at Glasgow. Developing countries have been pointing to the absence of equity and differentiation since negotiations started during the second week and the COP26 Presidency released the first draft Glasgow pact text. The like-minded developing countries (LMDCs) which include India and China had submitted a proposal to the COP26 Presidency highlighting the need for recognising common but differentiated responsibility of countries explicitly in the text.

“The Paris Agreement has a delicate balance, which we cannot rewrite. There should be differentiation in climate action and ambition. There should also be a recognition of the pre-2020 ambition gap. If we go ahead with the proposal of net-zero by 2050 for all countries, the developing world will be trapped. We do not have the technological, financial means to achieve such targets. This narrative will allow the developed world to control the world with carbon colonialism,” Diego Pacheco, lead negotiator for Bolivia on behalf of LMDC said during a press conference at COP26 on November 11. BASIC (Brazil, India, South Africa, and China) also said the same in their statement on November 10.

It also called for clarity on the definition of climate finance underlining that finance tends to be provided with unilateral conditionality and eligibility criteria as well as in the form of loans, rather than grants, which aggravates the debt crisis. BASIC was seeking deliberations on a formal, transparent process for setting a new quantified goal on finance and outlining milestones to deliver that 2023 onwards.

When none of this was reflected in the draft texts, there was an erosion of trust among developing country parties. Conversations with negotiators suggested that the principle of differentiation was being diluted at COP26 through not only the wording on phasing out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies, but also in asking all parties to update their NDCs once again in 2022 to align with the Paris Agreement goal of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The final text also decided to convene an annual high-level ministerial round table on pre-2030 ambition.

The Third World Network — an international research organisation focusing on north-south issues — said in their briefing from COP26 that the United States (US) did not want any reference to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) in the operational paragraphs of the draft decisions, nor for any references to the carbon budget.

The US did not respond to HT’s queries on whether this was true. A negotiator from the European Union (EU) during an off-record briefing confirmed that developed countries insisted on expanding the donor base for the new climate finance goal with talks of including China, Saudi Arabia, and even India in it. While China is the largest emitter cumulatively, experts pointed that the same cannot apply to India.

When the issue of differentiation was not addressed even in the final draft, India and China made an intervention during the formal plenary calling for rewording of the text. With objections from China and India, there would be no agreement at Glasgow. While China said they wanted re-phrasing of certain provisions, India read out the text they thought was more appropriate. COP26 President, Alok Sharma, said that he was deeply sorry for the way negotiations ended, while holding back tears.

Later, during media interviews, he also said that India and China will have to explain their stand to climate-vulnerable countries. The EU and Switzerland on behalf of the Environment Integrity Group and several small island nations condemned India’s stand, blaming it for weakening the Glasgow Climate Pact. Interestingly, the US-China Joint Glasgow Declaration on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s released in Glasgow also mentioned that China will phase down coal consumption during the 15th Five Year Plan and make best efforts to accelerate this work.

“The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities is enshrined in the UNFCCC. Even the Paris Agreement has reaffirmed CBDR-RC which is the fundamental principle of UNFCCC. More importantly, “phase-down” is the same word used in the US-China agreement presented in Glasgow so US and China had agreed on this wording. India only spoke for BASIC, LMDC. India has huge development imperatives, but we have also made huge commitments on renewables. India’s intervention was a directional statement and India is making efforts to achieve it. There is no vast difference between phase out and phase down,” explained Manjeev Singh Puri, former negotiator and ambassador.

Sunita Narain, director-general of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), highlighted that the lack of recognising climate justice in the text was the biggest failure of the pact. The pact’s fundamental and fatal flaw is on the very first page – where it says, rather dismissively, that “it notes the importance for some of the concept of climate justice. We cannot erase the fact that certain countries — the US, EU-27, UK, Canada, Australia, Japan and Russia and joined now by China — have consumed roughly 70% of the carbon budget, the space in the atmosphere that is available to keep the world below the 1.5° Celsius temperature rise. The challenge is that the world has run out of its carbon budget, but some 70% of the world’s people still need the right to development. As these countries grow, they will add emissions and take the world to catastrophic levels of temperature rise. It is for this reason, climate justice is not an add-on concept for some, but the pre-requisite for an effective and ambitious agreement. This lack of understanding is at the core of the problem.”

The other issue highlighted by India is that the text focuses only on coal, but not on oil and gas. “All fossil fuels are bad for the environment. Singling out coal without talking about other fossil fuels like natural gas is not the best way forward. But India, in the spirit of compromise, helped evolve a language that was acceptable to all. This language takes care of concerns of many developing countries including India, said a senior delegation member in Glasgow.

Was Glasgow a failure?

Not entirely. CSE pointed that developed countries continuously resisted defining climate finance and adding specific language that would communicate an increased contribution over and above the $100 billion.

But the final text acknowledges the needs of developing countries for climate finance and sets out a process to deliver on those needs. On climate finance, the agreed text commits developed countries to double the collective share of adaptation finance within the $100 billion annual target for 2021-2025, and to reach the $100 billion goal as soon as possible.

Parties have also committed to a process to agree on long-term climate finance beyond 2025. The Glasgow Pact also decided to establish a dialogue between parties, stakeholders and relevant organisations to support efforts to avert, minimise and address loss and damage associated with the climate crisis.

“I think it is a big step for a country like India to accept a coal phase-down deal. This would not have happened even a year ago. Going forward, beyond the technical and economic challenges of clean energy transitions, India should plan for a just transition for coal workers, their communities and coal-dependent states. Several states and districts are dependent on coal for jobs and revenues and any phase-down or ultimate phase-out of coal needs to make sure these workers and their communities are not left behind,” said Sandeep Pai, research lead at Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“This just transition planning is a major undertaking which will take decades of planning and implementation. Right now, the need of the hour is focusing on the economic diversification of coal-dependent states and districts to non-coal sectors, skill retraining of workers and environmental rehabilitation of coal infrastructure. In terms of economic diversification. detailed studies are required to assess which sectors have the potential in coal-bearing states such as Jharkhand, Odisha and so on. There can be many sectors that could work. They range from tourism, renewable energy to non-coal manufacturing. Based on these policies, policies need to be devised for promoting such sectors,” he added, underlining that India will need focused funding for a just transition.

“All of this would require finance — and lots of it. International donors and rich countries should contribute to furthering India’s just transition needs,” he added.