While world leaders assembled in Glasgow to participate in the COP26 climate summit, Ulka Kelkar, Director - Climate, World Resources Institute (WRI), India exclusively spoke to Asian Voice about the impact of climate change on the UK-India partnership and the role of both developing and developed countries in meeting climate change goals.
What magnitude of capital investment would it take for the UK-India combined partnership to fight climate change?
India has just announced strong renewable energy targets for 2030 and a net zero target for 2070. Meeting these targets will require massive investments in renewable energy, battery storage, and green hydrogen. This will require additional investments of hundreds of billions of dollars in the next 10-15 years and trillions of dollars over the next few decades.
Is it wise to put the onus on developing countries to tackle their climate crisis, while they continue to become dumpyards and puppets for the developed countries that contribute more to changing global climate crisis?
Developing countries like India have much to lose from climate change and much to gain from adopting a climate-friendly path to development. While India’s past emissions have been very low, and present emissions per person continue to be well below the world average, its future emissions are projected to grow as it builds its energy and urban infrastructure. The choice now is to build cleaner rather than locking in to high carbon assets.
For least developed countries that are already facing the brunt of climate disasters, it is very important to urgently scale up finance to adapt to climate impacts.
How will COP 26 change the course of the India-UK partnership on climate change? Where can the two countries collaborate, keeping in mind that both nations have to undergo a complete socio-economic recovery amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic?
While the UK needs to decarbonise its existing infrastructure, India needs to build new green infrastructure. Both countries can collaborate to scale up new technologies and make them more affordable – these include renewable energy, especially offshore wind, electric mobility, and energy storage. On the adaptation side, collaboration on insurance, weather forecasting, and climate services will be invaluable.
What does the data say about the developed versus developing countries with respect to climate change? Who fares better in the climate change report card?
Developed countries have been responsible for the bulk of past emissions that have led to more than 1 degree Celsius of warming already. Developing country emissions are low but growing, particularly from emerging economies like India. For developing countries, climate change is one of many challenges and stresses, and they need to fight it while also trying to lift millions out of poverty and provide them clean water, nutrition, food, affordable housing, public transport, and decent jobs. So it is not fair or easy to compare developed and developing countries with respect to climate change. What we need is solidarity and collective action.
What are the top concerns related to climate change for the Indo-Pacific region and how much time do we have until another big blow hits us?
This region is highly vulnerable to climate change, particularly to heat stress, sea level rise, erratic rainfall, and storms. The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned us that climate change could make extreme weather events more frequent or intense, and also lead to recurring or compound extremes that test the limits of our coping capacity.
