The climate blame game must end

With global warming accelerating, climate justice now demands greater accountability from wealthy nations and faster emissions cuts from allemitters, including India

Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a Delhi climate conference on Saturday that responsibility for emissions has “often been wrongly placed on developing countries”. The principle is sound. India emits about 2.2 tonnes of CO2 per person, less than half the global average; an American emits roughly 14. The six-fold gap PM Modi cited holds for the United States, though less so for Europe or Japan. History strengthens his case. The United States accounts for about a fifth of all CO2 emitted since 1850, some 537 billion tonnes by the end of 2024: two-thirds more than China and three-quarters more than the EU. Per head, the EU’s historical total is three times China’s. The atmosphere’s carbon budget was spent on the rich world’s industrialisation, and late developers are now told to live within the remainder.

Yet justice is not an alibi. India is the third-largest emitter, at about 8 per cent of the global total, and coal still supplies most of its electricity. Per capita is a moral argument; the atmosphere responds to total tonnes. The culprits are also contemporary. China emits nearly a third of global CO2 today. The United States, having formally quit the Paris Agreement again, saw 2025 emissions rise enough to account for about 40 per cent of the global increase, more than the EU, China and India combined. Modi’s claim on delivery needs precision too. India crossed 50 per cent non-fossil power capacity five years ahead of its 2030 pledge, and its emissions grew just 0.7 per cent in 2025, the slowest rise since 2001 outside the pandemic. But the 2.5 to 3 billion tonne carbon-sink goal stood at 2.29 billion in the government’s latest report, and intensity-based targets let absolute emissions keep climbing. “Every commitment met” is premature. The stakes are stark. UNEP’s Limiting Overshoot report, released on September 2, says 1.5C will be crossed within a few years, with 1.8C the best-case peak and about 2.6C by 2100 on current policies.

The way forward has three parts. First, the rich must pay. The $300 billion a year promised by 2035 fell well short of the $500 billion developing countries sought and the $1.3 trillion experts say is needed, and the pledge to triple adaptation finance is non-binding.

At COP31 in November, India should demand delivery schedules, cheaper capital through reformed development banks, and technology transfer. Second, India must convert moral authority into a peak. It should fix a date for peaking coal power, which analysts say is possible before 2030, and expand storage, transmission grids and nuclear capacity to deliver its 2035 pledge of a 47 per cent intensity cut and 60 per cent non-fossil capacity. Third, all the big emitters must cut faster. UNEP’s 1.5C benchmark is a 55 per cent fall from 2019 levels by 2035. Washington’s absence makes that harder still; Beijing’s ambition matters more than ever. PM Modi is right that the poor should not carry the blame. But climate justice cools no degree unless it becomes climate action.