This video is produced under the aegis of Climate Tracker’s Online COP26 Climate Justice Journalism Fellowship, awarded to The Bastion’s Environment Lead Vaishnavi Rathore. To read the rest of her coverage under this fellowship, click here. | Narrated and conceptualised by Vaishnavi Rathore; edited by Manasi Nene.
International climate negotiations are scheduled to take place at the 26th Conference of the Parties, or COP26, at Glasgow, Scotland between October 31 and November 12th this year. The official website of COP26 says that this year’s event will be the “world’s best last chance to get runaway climate change under control.” But before these negotiations begin at full throttle, why is the Conference of the Parties a big deal in the first place? What does it mean for India’s addressal of the climate crisis?
In this explainer, The Bastion speaks with Shikha Bhasin, Senior Programme Lead at Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and Bhasker Tripathi, an independent journalist covering international climate politics, to talk about the past, present, and future of India’s climate negotiations at the COP.
Shikha Basin takes us through India’s role as a leader in COPs over the years, for many developing nations and their issues. She describes the Nationally Determined Commitments (NDCs) India made during the Paris Agreement, 2015, and where we have succeeded and where we have not fared as well.
Now, climate commitments need money. For developing nations to even achieve 40% of their past commitments, a latest UN assessment shows that they will need almost 6 trillion dollars by 2030. “And yet, for the developed countries, the debate always stops at 100 billion dollars, which is a fraction of the money needed,” says Bhasker Tripathi. He further describes the kind of dynamics between developed and developing nations in international negotiations, and how they impact the availability of climate finance.
Tune in for more on what you can expect from the upcoming COP26 negotiations, and what issues India should stand strong on.
