The World Economic Forum 2024 at Davos has been an exciting and thought provoking conference in the face of a challenging global environment coupled with climate change challenges and the increasing deployment of Artificial Intelligence.
With the declarations made at the G20 Summit (September 2023) and COP-28 (December 2023), there is a sharp focus on establishing and implementing pathways to ‘just energy transition’ and ‘sustainable development’ while securing economic growth.
We need to strengthen the global institutional architecture and processes to decouple economic growth from carbon emissions by a calibrated shift in ‘production’ and ‘consumption’ patterns, to measure the actual impact periodically and to undertake course-correction.
To rebuild trust, the developed world must vacate some of the carbon space while making climate technology and long-term climate finance accessible to developing nations.
The first global stock-take post COP-21 (Paris) at Dubai (COP-28) established emphatically how the world fell short of the promises held out in Paris (COP-21, 2015).
India has shown the way since COP-21 (2015), steadily battling climate change and being the voice for voiceless developing world. India’s inclusive leadership was on display at the G-20 summit when the 51 African countries were invited to participate at the fora.
States to the fore
At WEF 2024, India, in particular, displayed its potential as a dominant figure on the world stage with states such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Karnataka making their presence felt.
India and France launched the International Solar Alliance in November 2015 to mitigate climate change, deploying solar energy solutions. With over 120 signatories, ISA is moving to implement the ‘One Sun One World One Grid’ and ‘Green Grids’. India and Sweden launched the Leadership Group on Industry Transition (Lead IT) at UN Climate Action Summit (2019) to enhance climate action in hard-to-abate industrial sectors, committing to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure launched by India at the UN Climate Action Summit (November 2019) is a coalition amongst national governments, UN agencies, multilateral development banks, private sector, academia and knowledge institutions to promote climate and disaster risk resilient infrastructure systems (ecological, social and economic).
It aims to incubate public private partnership to achieve ‘sustainable development’ with specific focus on health, education, transportation, telecommunication, energy and water.
Taking charge
India is poised to leader climate action with its demonstrated track record in implementing its ambitious NDCs and helping neighbours/developing economies facing disasters with food, medicine and manpower. Being home to technological innovations and start-ups, India achieved these NDCs with a strong policy nudge through the multi-pronged National Action Plan on Climate Change, inducing change in consumption choices and production methods.
The rising consciousness of ESG and SDGs has lent impetus to collaborative endeavours globally to tackle carbon emissions, integrating ESG practices in business operations.
As India establishes a vibrant carbon market backstopped by a robust regulatory framework, it offers a vibrant and affordable source for carbon credits for developed nations and carbon emitting industries to comply with their emission budgets.
It will indeed be interesting to see how some of the key debates at Davos around AI, sustainable development and climate action take shape in the real world.
The writer is with JSA Advocates and Solicitors