The Obama administration downplayed the importance of India to international negotiations on climate change, as countries ramp up their efforts reach an internal agreement.
China and the United States together account for 45 percent of global emissions as the world’s top two greenhouse gas polluters. India is third, but it accounts for just about 6 percent of carbon emissions worldwide.
“People always talk about China and India as if they go together. They’re third, but it’s a distant third,” Todd Stern, the State Department’s top climate negotiator, said at a Monday event hosted by the Center for American Progress.
That’s not to say India’s actions are inconsequential to global climate talks slated for next year in Paris, where nations will look to strike a deal governing emissions beyond 2020. India, like China, is a developing economy that has refused to sign onto climate pacts for fear that doing so would restrain its growth.
While China earlier this month took a politically significant step in agreeing to a bilateral, though non-binding, climate deal with the U.S., news out of India hasn’t been encouraging to climate change advocates.
Indian officials have recently said their emissions will continue to rise, and that they plan to double coal production by the end of the decade to help provide electricity to millions of citizens without it.
President Obama is set to travel to India in January, where he will meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Climate is expected to be on the agenda. But it’s not clear to U.S. officials how India is planning to approach the United Nations negotiations in Paris next year, Stern said.
“We don’t know yet,” he said.
