E-Paper
A Nordic-Indian push for a low-carbon world
India must urge Europe and China to come together to revive the global climate agenda, and speak for the Global South
The green partnerships with Sweden and Norway are among the highlights of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s five-nation tour that ends on Wednesday. The partnerships — Green Transition with Sweden and Green Strategic with Norway — by themselves are statements of ambition on leveraging the two Nordic countries’ capabilities in green technology and India’s scale and talent for sustainable development. The focal points — energy transition, low-carbon industrialisation centred on jobs and growth, and supply-chain resilience — acknowledge current realities of climate and geopolitics, including the impact of the US-Israel war on Iran on global energy trade, as well as the development imperatives for a low-middle-income country like India.
Crucially, these partnerships underline the willingness in Europe — recall India’s agreements with Denmark, the Netherlands, and the European Union — to engage with investment and industry-led green action and a readiness to push the global climate agenda under a bilateral route. Coming against the backdrop of the near-collapse of the rules-based world order and multilateral climate mitigation initiatives, these partnerships serve as templates for engagement with other nations. Even as India walks this path, it must put its weight behind multilateral climate action pathways under the UNFCCC umbrella and grant-led climate funding by richer nations amid depleting consensus on climate action. There is a US-shaped vacuum in the conversation and agreements on climate crisis mitigation and adaptation. India must urge Europe and China to come together to revive the global climate agenda, and speak for the Global South, home to some of the most climate-vulnerable nations.
