From climate targets to energy justice

Why in the News

A former United Nations (UN) diplomat argues that India should reframe climate change as national crises arising from unequal energy use, not as a global temperature goal driven by emissions. Global policy, he argues, must shift from production to consumption.

What does reframing climate change around energy justice mean?

1. Symptom and cause: Global carbon dioxide emissions are the symptom and national energy use the root cause, much as a fever is a symptom of an infection.
2. Electricity and well-being: Countries will electrify differently, so debate should judge electricity’s role in national well-being by national actions, not global models.
3. Agenda setting: The G7, a club of seven rich economies, should not set the agenda the way the Paris Agreement did 10 years ago.
4. The takeaway: Climate action would be judged by how each country uses energy for well-being, not by its share of one global emissions target.

Why have 35 years of consensus diplomacy failed the Global South?

1. Western expert networks: Western academics, as epistemic communities (expert groups shaping policy), built climate policy on universal ‘global values’, models and rules set by science and diplomacy.
2. UN as legitimiser: UN technical reports lent these policies legitimacy, and international law then enforced the ‘consensus’ within countries.
3. Unequal bargain: Pressure, not agreement, settled the clash between ecological limits and urbanising countries’ energy needs. No one committed to transfer finance as ‘means of implementation’.
4. Empty resolutions: The vaguely worded treaty produced workshops, and the developing Global South gained only empty resolutions. Technology transfer was treated as a ‘scientific’ issue, not an ‘implementation’ issue.

What has shifted in global climate politics?

1. United States reversal: The US now echoes Global South reservations, through its January 2025 Executive Order “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements”.
2. Carbonising before decarbonising: As Global South energy use grows, emissions will rise before they fall. The UN’s new call for stabilisation, rather than reduction, of emissions only partly recognises this.
3. Energy for well-being: Negotiations have never discussed how much energy well-being needs. China, the second-largest economy, matches Western well-being with much lower energy use.
4. China’s missed path: UN reports have missed China’s nationally driven path to stabilisation, even as US emissions rose by 133 megatons in 2025.
5. Consumption limits: China and India limit consumption as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), replace the internal combustion engine (ICE), and meet new demand with solar, wind and hydropower.

What do China’s transition and global trends show?

1. Cheap power is not enough: Cheaper solar and wind will not drive the transition alone. Their power is decentralised, intermittent and costs nothing per extra unit (zero marginal cost), so it needs state planning.
2. China’s scale: China installed more wind and solar capacity in 2025 than all other nations combined, about ten times the US addition.
3. Non-fossil share: Half of China’s electricity generation could be non-fossil by 2030.
4. Electric vehicles: About 5.62 million new energy vehicles, China’s term for electric and other alternative-fuel cars, were registered in China in the first half of 2025.
5. Trends models miss: UN emissions models miss that emerging countries use far less energy for urban well-being than the West once did, and are ageing.

Challenges

1. Uninsured climate risk: Extreme events are growing more intense and frequent in the Global South, where insurance coverage is limited.
2. Western overuse: The West, about one-fifth of the world’s population, still uses a disproportionate share of energy, so the crisis is a few national crises, not one global one.
3. Coalition gap: India has yet to build international support for a new agenda centred on climate justice.

Way Forward

1. Climate finance review: Review the token climate finance developed countries now provide.
2. Global early warning: Build a global early warning system for extreme weather.
3. Regional disaster cooperation: Expand regional technical cooperation in disaster relief.

Conclusion

Climate diplomacy is drifting from one global emissions target towards differentiated national energy paths, and India’s case rests on well-being per unit of energy. The test is whether India can build a climate justice coalition around it.

Back2Basics: Paris Agreement

1. Temperature goal: The Agreement aims to limit warming to below 2°C, preferably to 1.5°C.
2. Negotiating forum: Countries negotiate under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), whose Conference of the Parties (COP) is the supreme decision-making body.
3. Target cycle: COP30 began the third cycle of nationally determined contributions (NDCs), national climate pledges, with targets for 2035.
4. Carbon markets: COP30 terminated the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), making Article 6.4 the sole UN carbon-crediting mechanism.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2025] Consider the following statements: Statement I: Article 6 of the Paris Agreement on climate change is frequently discussed in global discussions on sustainable development and climate change. Statement II: Article 6 of the Paris Agreement on climate change sets out the principles of carbon markets. Statement III: Article 6 of the Paris Agreement on climate change intends to promote inter-country non-market strategies to reach their climate targets. Which one of the following is correct in respect of the above statements? (a) Both Statement II and Statement III are correct and both of them explain Statement I (b) Both Statement II and Statement III are correct but only one of them explains Statement I (c) Only one of the Statements II and III is correct and that explains Statement I (d) Neither Statement II nor Statement III is correct ANSWER: (a)”