📰 PM Modi launches ‘Infrastructure for Resilient Island States’ for most vulnerable countries
Stating that the Small Island Developing States or SIDS face the biggest threat from climate change, Modi said that India’s space agency ISRO will build a special data window for them to provide them timely information about cyclones, coral-reef monitoring, coast-line monitoring etc. through satellite.
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday launched the Initiative for the Resilient Island States (IRIS) for developing infrastructure of small island nations, saying that it gives a new hope, a new confidence and satisfaction of doing something for the most vulnerable countries.
•Prime Minister Modi was joined by his British counterpart Boris Johnson on the second day of the COP26 climate summit.
•The launch event was also attended by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
•"The launch of 'Infrastructure for Resilient Island States' gives a new hope, a new confidence,” Modi said, adding that the initiative gives the satisfaction of doing something for the most vulnerable countries.
•Modi congratulated the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure CDRI for the initiative and said that for him the CDRI or IRIS is not just about infrastructure but it is part of a very sensitive responsibility of human welfare.
•"It is the collective responsibility of all of us towards mankind,” he said.
•“It is, in a way, a shared atonement for our sins. The last few decades have proved that no one is untouched by the wrath of climate change. Whether they are developed countries or countries rich in natural resources, this is a big threat to everyone,” Modi said.
•Stating that the Small Island Developing States or SIDS face the biggest threat from climate change, Modi said that India’s space agency ISRO will build a special data window for them to provide them timely information about cyclones, coral-reef monitoring, coast-line monitoring etc. through satellite.
•Speaking on the occasion, British Prime Minister Johnson said that it’s incredibly cruel that vulnerable, small island states are right in the frontline of loss and damage that is caused by global warming.
•"They have done virtually nothing to cause the problem, they didn't produce the huge volumes of CO2 to be pumped into the atmosphere,” he said.
•Johnson said that the UK is contributing financially to the initiative IRIS.
•“We are stomping up as well."
•Australian Prime Minister thanked India and the UK for their leadership of the CDRI. "I acknowledge them the Quad support, including the US and Japan support for India's CDRI," he said.
•The launch, which forms part of the India-UK Coalition for Disaster Resilient infrastructure (CDRI), marks the start of day two of the World Leaders’ Summit.
•The initiative is a part of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient infrastructure that would focus on building capacity, having pilot projects, especially in small island developing states.
Make legal framework technology-friendly to speed up criminal justice system, it says
•Fifteen years after the Supreme Court had issued directions for police reforms, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has asked the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and the State Governments to set up Police Complaints Authorities as per the judgment in Prakash Singh vs. Union of India, 2006.
•The NHRC’s core advisory group on criminal justice system reforms has said there is an “immediate need to set up police complaints authorities at the State/UT and district level” as per the Supreme Court’s directives, according to the minutes of its meeting published on Tuesday. The core group, which met on August 18, recommended to the MHA and the States that the status of compliance should be displayed on the websites of the Ministry and the State Home Departments.
•The NHRC group also said the MHA and the Law Ministry should consider implementing the recommendations of the 113th report of the Law Commission to add Section 114 B to the Indian Evidence Act. This would ensure that in case a person sustains injuries in police custody, it is presumed that the injuries were inflicted by the police and the burden of proof to explain the injury lies on the authority concerned.
•The core group also recommended making the legal framework technology-friendly to speed up the criminal justice system. “Presently the legal framework is not suitable for adoption of technology in the criminal justice system,” the minutes said.
Involvement of trained social workers
•The group also recommended that the Supreme Court’s December 2020 order to instal CCTV cameras with night vision in all police stations should be “implemented immediately” to ensure accountability. Among the recommendations were the involvement of trained social workers and law students with police stations as part of community policing and incorporating community policing in police manuals, laws and advisories.
•According to data provided by the Home Ministry to the Lok Sabha in March, 16 States and UTs had implemented police complaints boards.
📰 CoP26 summit | Leaders pledge to cut methane and save forests
Nearly 90 countries have joined a U.S.-and EU-led effort to slash emissions of methane 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels
•Leaders at the CoP26 global climate conference in Glasgow have pledged to stop deforestation by the end of the decade and slash emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane to help slow climate change.
•The inability of major powers so far to agree more broadly on rapid reductions in the use of fossil fuels, the main cause of man made global warming, has upset the poorer, smaller countries likely to suffer its worst effects.
•Surangel Whipps Jr, president of Palau, a Pacific state of500 low-lying islands under threat from rising sea levels, told the leaders of the G20 industrial powers in a speech: “We are drowning and our only hope is the life-ring you are holding.”
•Nearly 90 countries have joined a U.S.-and EU-led effort to slash emissions of methane 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels, a senior Biden administration official said ahead of a formal announcement on Tuesday.
•Methane is more short-lived in the atmosphere than carbondioxide but 80 times more potent in warming the earth. Cutting emissions of the gas, which is estimated to have accounted for 30% of global warming since pre-industrial times, is one of the most effective ways of slowing climate change.
•The Global Methane Pledge, first announced in September, now covers emissions from two-thirds of the global economy,according to the U.S. official.
•Among the signatories to be announced on Tuesday is Brazil — one of the five biggest emitters of methane, which is generated in cows’ digestive systems, in landfill waste and in oil and gas production. Three others — China, Russia and India — have not signed up, while Australia has said it will not back the pledge.
•Humanity has also boosted the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by hacking away at the forests that absorb roughly 30% of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the non-profit World Resources Institute.
Lost forests
•In 2020, the world lost 258,000 sq km (100,000 sq miles) of forest — an area larger than the United Kingdom, according to WRI’s Global Forest Watch. The conservation charity WWF estimates that 27 football fields of forest are lost every minute.
•More than 100 national leaders pledged to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by the end of the decade, underpinned by $19 billion in public and private funds to invest in protecting and restoring forests.
•The agreement vastly expands a commitment made by 40 countries as part of the 2014 New York Declaration of Forests,and promises more resources.
•“Let’s end this great global chainsaw massacre by making conservation do what we know it can do and deliver long-term sustainable jobs and growth as well,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.
•CoP26 aims to keep alive a receding target of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels to avert still greater damage from the intensified heatwaves, droughts, storms, floods and coastal damage that climate change is already causing.
•Under the agreement, 12 countries pledged to provide $12billion of public funding between 2021 and 2025 for developing countries to restore degraded land and tackle wildfires.
•At least $7.2 billion will come from private sector investors representing $8.7 trillion in assets under management,who also pledged to stop investing in activities linked to deforestation such as cattle, palm oil and soybean farming and pulp production.
•Brazil, which has cleared vast swathes of the Amazon rainforest, did make a new commitment on Monday to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030, compared with a previous pledge of 43%.
•And Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the first time set out a target date for India, heavily reliant on coal, to reduce its carbon emissions to a level it can absorb, albeit only in 2070 -20 years beyond the U.N.’s global recommendation.
‘Impossible to negotiate’
•But there is scant sign so far of shared resolve by the world’s two biggest carbon polluters, China and the United States, which together account for more than 40% of global emissions but are at odds on numerous issues.
•U.S. President Joe Biden has singled out China and leading oil producer Russia for failing to step up their climate goals in Glasgow, while Beijing has rejected Washington’s efforts to separate climate issues from their wider disagreements.
•The Communist Party-run Global Times said in an editorial on Monday that Washington’s attitude had made it “impossible for China to see any potential to have fair negotiation amid the tensions”.
•China said on Tuesday that President Xi Jinping, who decided not to attend in person, had not been given an opportunity to deliver a video address, and had to send a written response instead - in which he offered no additional pledges.
•The British government said it had wanted people to attend the conference in person, and had offered absentees the chance to provide recorded addresses or statements.
•“If the world was a private company,” said Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado Quesada, “imagine that for a minute,and the leaders of the world were to be different CEOs of the corporations - today we would all be fired.”
📰 Climate pledge: On CoP26 summit in Glasgow
Nations must realise they are not in a competitive race but trying to outrun the clock
•In a surprise move at COP26 in Glasgow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India will commit to ambitious, enhanced climate targets and cuts in carbon emissions in its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). There were promises to increase non-fossil fuel energy capacity to 500 GW, meet 50% energy from renewable energy, reduce emissions by one billion tonnes, and bring down the economy’s carbon intensity below 45%, all by 2030. Finally, the PM made the much-awaited declaration: to reach Net Zero emissions by 2070. The announcement came as a surprise given that India had given no assurances to visiting western climate negotiators before the conference, and had not filed updated NDCs by the deadline last month. Earlier, the G20 summit in Rome ended without any new commitments on climate change, and India’s G20 Sherpa and Minister Piyush Goyal had said that India could not “identify a year” for ending net carbon emissions (ensuring carbon dioxide emissions are absorbed by the use of technology and lowering output), unless the developed world committed to funding India’s energy transition and enabled clean technology transfers on a much higher scale. Mr. Goyal even suggested that India could not switch to non-fossil fuel and end coal-based thermal plants unless it was made a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, where it is being blocked by China and a number of other countries.
•Mr. Modi’s pledges in 2021 will require an almost immediate shift in the Government’s priorities if it wishes to meet its first few goals in just eight years. According to one estimate (the Centre for Science and Environment), the promise to reduce emissions by one billion tonnes would need a reduction in India’s carbon output by a massive 22% by 2030. On Net Zero, the target of 2070 is two decades after the global goal at mid-century, and would require the world’s other growing economies including China to peak emissions, preferably by 2030 itself. India meets about 12% of its electricity needs through renewable energy, and ramping that up to 50% by 2030 will be a tall ask too. If the Government realises Mr. Modi’s promises in Glasgow, India will be a global beacon in fighting climate change and ensuring sustainable development. At the least, it is hoped the commitments will inspire other countries to keep their word, particularly the developed world that has lagged behind in fulfilling combined promises of billions of dollars to fund emerging economies, LDCs and the most climate vulnerable countries in the global South. When it comes to climate change, countries must remember they are not in competition with one another, but trying together to outrun the clock.
📰 Trade and climate, the pivot for India-U.S. ties
The two areas are interrelated and will lend additional strength to the foundation of a true partnership
•When the history of the 21st century is written, India and the United States and the strategic alliance they forge should play starring roles. Granted, it is far too early to predict how successful their joint efforts will be in creating a free and open Indo-Pacific — one that advances democratic values and confronts autocracies globally and locally. As 2021 closes, with COVID-19 still a present danger and China, the emerging superpower on the global stage, viewed by both as a strategic competitor, India and the U.S. have a long way to go before they can inspire confidence that this blossoming alliance will endure for the long term.
Areas of convergence
•We believe that the fate of the grand strategic ambitions of the relationship may in fact depend substantially on how well they collaborate in two areas to which their joint attention is only belatedly turning — climate and trade. The first presents an existential threat while the second is too often dismissed as a secondary consideration, even dispensable in the name of pursuing larger strategic interests. Such thinking ignores the lessons of history: strategic partnerships capable of re-shaping the international global order cannot be based simply on a negative agenda. Shared concerns about China provide the U.S.-India partnership a much-needed impetus to overcome the awkward efforts for deeper collaboration that have characterised the past few decades. What risks being lost is a reckoning with how interrelated climate and trade are to securing U.S.-India leadership globally, and how their strategic efforts can flounder without sincere commitment to a robust bilateral agenda on both fronts.
Some encouraging signs
•There has been progress. The U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, has visited India twice already, and India and the U.S. are collaborating under the Climate and Clean Energy Agenda Partnership. In parallel, there are hopeful signs that they are now prioritising the bilateral trade relationship by rechartering the Trade Policy Forum. Both countries are also taking leading roles, articulating their climate concerns and commitments. However, early signs suggest we might be headed for a replay of previous showdowns at COP26 in Glasgow: while India just announced a net zero goal for 2070 — a welcome development even if well after catastrophic climate scenarios may be baked in — it has called for western countries to commit to negative emissions targets. India’s rhetoric of climate justice is likely to be received poorly by U.S. negotiators, particularly if it aligns with China’s messaging and obstructs efforts to reach concrete results. Likewise, the failure of the U.S. and India to articulate a shared vision for a comprehensive trade relationship raises doubts about how serious they are when each spends more time and effort negotiating with other trading partners. Protectionist tendencies infect the politics of both countries these days, and, with a contentious U.S. mid-term election a year away, the political window for achieving problem-solving outcomes and setting a vision on trade for the future is closing fast.
The interlinks
•Climate and trade are interrelated in many ways, from commercial dissemination of cutting-edge carbon mitigation and adaptation products and technologies to the carbon emissions that come with the transport of goods and humans from one country to another. If governments, such as India and the U.S., coordinate policies to incentivise sharing of climate-related technologies and align approaches for reducing emissions associated with trade, the climate-trade inter-relationship can be a net positive one.
Work on early solutions
•For example, India and the U.S. could find opportunities to align their climate and trade approaches better, starting with a resolution of their disputes in the World Trade Organization (WTO) on solar panels. As they have dithered in pursuing cases in the WTO and settling them, China has effectively captured the global market, leaving each dependent on a source they view as a threat. The two countries could also chart a path that allows trade to flow for transitional energy sources, such as fuel ethanol. India currently bans imports of fuel ethanol even as it seeks to ramp up its own ethanol blend mandates and build a domestic sector that can join the U.S. and Brazil in exporting to the world. Left unaddressed, this will be another missed opportunity for the two economies to work to mutual benefit.
•Shared strategic interests will be undermined if India and the U.S. cannot jointly map coordinated policies on climate and trade. The most immediate threat could be the possibility of new climate and trade tensions were India to insist that technology is transferred in ways that undermine incentives for innovation in both countries or if the U.S. decides that imports from India be subject to increased tariffs in the form of carbon border adjustment mechanisms or “CBAMs”. Climate-inspired trade tensions that might even lead to new trade wars can hardly bolster the strategic partnership.
A point to ponder over
•Diplomats on both sides have worked hard over the past few years to paper over such differences so that they do not distract from the efforts to lay the foundations for a closer strategic partnership, but the fissures have not disappeared and ignoring them will not make them go away. Rather, the danger is that they will widen and deepen and come to undermine shared longer-term goals. A mutual failure to confront these issues and present a united front in relations with other countries will surely have strategic consequences.
•So, even as they continue to embrace warmly in various strategic settings, U.S. President Joe Biden and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi might want to ask how this partnership is clearly falling short of its potential, and why. Concerted action on both the climate and trade fronts is mutually beneficial and will lend additional strength to the foundation of a true partnership for the coming century.
