Climate Change Policy in India

This chapter positions the climate change policy of India as having been driven by international compulsions. Right up to the 1990s, it was not a domestic priority. It suited us to relegate climate change to the position of a developed country problem. India held that climate change had been caused by the developed world and should be solved by them. This position fitted into our perception of equity as a significant cornerstone of India’s development policy, both domestically and internationally. This chapter reviews how changes in this stance took place more to fit into the changing international scenario and by the need to be perceived as a forward-looking nation. The participation in Clean Development Mechanism in 2005, the drawing up of the National Action Plan on Climate Change in 2008 and the acceptance in Cancun in 2010 that ‘all countries must take binding commitments, under appropriate legal forms’ constituted significant turning points. Policymakers need to continue to engage simultaneously with the domestic and international constituencies and chart a path of growth which reconciles the two contradicting perceptions. India is gradually moving in that direction with focus on reducing energy intensity, on renewable energy and on low-carbon growth.