G20 places India in a position to gear up the world for key challenges
The G20 is an association of twenty nations formed in 1999 comprising the world's largest developed and developing economies to discuss international economic and financial stability. Over a period of time more pressing global matters too have been added to the G20 agenda, making the forum’s mandate quite exhaustive.
However, even as India has taken the presidency, politics on the home front has started right in earnest over the credit for the “honorable” achievement. While the ruling party is pitching the presidency as a feat, the opposition on the other hand is mortified over the portrayal of a rotational post as an incredible achievement. But usual politics notwithstanding, this development has an innate and latent potential to make a quantifiable difference in the fight against climate change.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has outlined the four broad objectives of tackling climate change, terrorism, disaster management and dealing with the pandemic as the frontline problems facing the world.
During the course of the presidency, India will hold 200 events in over 50 cities culminating in the G20 summit in September 2023. The G20 member states are home to 67 per cent of the world population, and they account for 85 per cent of global GDP and over 75 per cent of global trade.
India as the G20 president can utilise the wide and influential member base to set a benchmark in the fight against climate change and in the process establish its institutional credibility. But in order to do this, India must extract full mileage from being at the helm of such a prestigious forum and this is possible only if an agenda is set up on war footing and the same is implemented in an expedited manner. Agreeably, one year is too short a time to effect a change, but that’s precisely why India must hit the ground running.
India must bring climate finance, energy and food security into play. For instance, India is already ambitious about becoming a green hydrogen export hub. Green hydrogen has immense potential and is the new hope for decarbonising sectors such as refining, fertilisers, steel and cement. India could use the G20 platform to discuss green hydrogen’s supply chain challenges, private sector participation in technology development and policy incentives for sectors to transition.
India should also emphasise finance delivery as per earlier commitments, but the same is fraught with bottle necks and hurdles. As the head of G20, India must encourage an enhanced private sector partnership, enable access to a global pool of environmental, social and governance (ESG) capital and highlight the role of multilateral development banks (MDBs). Additionally, India must also factor in the volatile geopolitical situations on account of ongoing conflicts such as the Russian-Ukrainian war.
India must also ensure preparedness for various global capital access risks like currency depreciation, monetary policy tightening, rising inflation and high interest rates. India must also push for the member nations to share their country specific case studies of innovative climate financing techniques, such as blended finance for de-risking capital, especially for new technologies like battery storage, offshore wind, and green hydrogen. These real-time case studies will help as they are important for a well-rounded discussion before policy making.
India can help countries adopt appropriate governance, strategy and risk management structures to manage climate risks. This in turn can help in the greater flow of capital to climate adaptation and mitigation. India must leave an indelible mark of high productivity in the shortest time possible as the G20 President. That would be considered as an achievement and not just occupying a rotational post.
(The author is a foreign affairs commentator)