Indian Climate Policy: Choices and Challenges - The Stimson Center

28 | CHELLANEY
The specter of resource competition, large-scale movement of “climate
refugees,” social and political tensions, and a higher frequency and intensity of
extreme weather events helps underscore the human-security costs. Climate
variability will bring change to the social-economic-political environments on
which the security of individuals and communities rest. Authorities – as well as
communities – will be forced to innovate and manage under a climate changedriven
paradigm. Building greater institutional and organizational capacity,
early-warning systems, more efficient irrigation practices, and new farm varieties
will all become necessary.
THE FRONTLINE OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Against this background, India is likely to find itself on the frontline of climate
change. To deal with these national security implications, India needs to frame
the concept of security more broadly and redefine its defense planning and
preparedness. Unconventional challenges – from transnational terrorism to
illegal refugee inflows – already have become significant in India’s security
calculus. India also needs to build greater state capacity – at federal, provincial,
and local levels – to tackle various contingencies and adapt to a climate changedriven
paradigm. Climate change holds the greatest risks for India in the
agricultural sector—a sector that employs half of the Indian workforce and yet
makes up just 18 percent of the GDP. The challenge of ensuring food security
and social stability demands greater national investments in rural infrastructure
and agriculture and also simultaneously requires finding a way to leapfrog to
green technologies.
A lot can be done to combat climate change outside any regime. India’s US$ 22
billion solar-energy program, US$ 2.5 billion forestation fund, and new national
energy-efficiency mission are initiatives in the right direction.
Internationally, though, Indian diplomacy must ensure that the country is not
saddled with unfair obligations that compound its challenges. Equity in burdensharing
has to be ensured. The challenge is to devise carbon standards that help
protect the material and social benefits of economic growth in the developing
world without damaging prosperity in the developed countries.
But just as the five original nuclear weapons states helped fashion the 1970
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to perpetuate their privileges, countries
that became wealthy early wish to preserve their prerogatives in a climate change
regime despite their legacy of environmental damage and continuing high carbon
emissions. This has raised the danger of rich nations locking in their advantages