Puzzling dichotomy: India’s climate debate must not be framed as mitigation versus adaptation

However, while India could soon be among the world’s four largest national economies, it is the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases. It is expected that India would become the third-largest economy by 2030 and the second-largest emitter by around 2035.

Given its economic size and the rise in extreme events globally as a result of rapidly deteriorating climate conditions, India cannot responsibly de-prioritize mitigation efforts and postulate all developmental initiatives as ‘climate adaptation’ efforts.

The fact that adaptation and resilience-building need to go together with mitigation was accepted by the global climate community at least a few decades ago—with the sharp cautionary note that as mitigation fails, adaptation efforts would likely fail faster.

As such, the survey’s contention that “scarce fiscal resources should not be diverted away from health, agriculture and poverty reduction merely to accelerate near-term mitigation milestones" seems to reflect an inadequate grasp of the subject.

Near-term mitigation measures are unarguably crucial to limit the intensity of adverse climate outcomes and must not be seen as taking away from development in any way. Just as we prioritize industrialization as a mantra for economic growth, mitigation is more efficient than adaptation as a focus of development.

Instead of wholly embracing the country’s achievements on its low-carbon transition—driven as they may be by competitive or strategic considerations—the survey uses selective international experiences to project a defensive approach to the climate crisis.

Notably, it highlights the apparent stalling of low-carbon transition programs in Europe as an argument for India’s approach to mitigation–with scant regard for the same context-specificity it refers to when identifying climate risks.

The challenges of moving to a low-carbon economy for a developed country—with evolved infrastructure, systems and lifestyles—are different from those for a country where infrastructure is still significantly in its greenfield stage and lifestyles are mostly aspirational. Given the speed and scale at which economies need to reduce emissions, lessons from global (not just developed country) experiences are invaluable. Learning from these, India should fine-tune strategies to suit its own context while continuing to prepare for an altered future.

Also, India needs to acknowledge that its old defence based on the argument of low per-capita emissions has served its purpose; in the last three decades since it was first introduced, India has made significant technical and economical progress. By virtue of its economy’s size, the country’s global status has shifted from ‘low income’ to ‘lower middle income.’

However, even though the share of Indians living in extreme poverty has declined sharply to 5.3%, the standard lower-middle-income-country benchmark shows that 24% of India’s population was poor in 2022. This goes up to nearly 80% if an upper-middle-income poverty line is used. Applying a poverty line for high-income countries will probably reveal just a small single-digit proportion of Indians being non-poor.

A selective comparison of per-capita emissions among non-poor segments of the developed world, and India—which aspires to be part of it by 2047—may then reveal the scale of challenge we will face as our attributable per-capita emissions will not be dissimilar to those of the developed world.

That said, given the prevalence of poverty in India, the survey’s emphasis on adaptation support is correct. It would have done well, however, to distinguish between normal developmental initiatives and specific adaptation efforts needed to cope with the additional stressors of climate change and extreme events. This would require a clear articulation of the risks posed by climate change, the regions most vulnerable to each risk, the populations exposed to them and the outcome-oriented resilience-creation steps being taken or called for.

An annual report on the progress made would be helpful. The survey should also recognize the rapidly deteriorating environmental conditions that call for urgent adaptation support—pervasive air pollution, plastic pollution, water shortages, etc.

Broadly, the survey presents the current state of the economy, identifies emerging problems for policy responses and informs the annual budget of the country. But its apparent representation of climate action as part of a mitigation-versus-adaptation conflict strikes a disappointing note. The short-term cannot be divorced from the long-term and we should resist the suggestion that it may be feasible to take a less than systemic approach to emission reduction.

We need a proper appreciation of the full lifecycle costs and benefits of mitigation measures. We also need to emphasize the varied benefits of adaptation initiatives. Critically, we must keep track of the country’s progress on meeting its international commitments.

None of this underplays the responsibility of the developed world or its unacceptable failure to take corrective action. Regardless, India must continue on its climate journey with due emphasis placed on long-term outcomes and equity considerations.

The author is an independent expert on climate change and clean energy.