US envoy John Kerry meets Indian PM Narendra Modi on bolder climate change goals
- India is wary of setting a hard carbon neutral target like China and other G20 countries even as the threat of climate change looms
- US funding will help as New Delhi sees value in climate action as a foreign policy tool
Kerry, in the Indian capital on a three-day tour that ends on Thursday, promised Modi the US would “bring more money to the table” and “facilitate concessionary finance” to fund the transition of the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases towards greener sources of energy.
Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, director of the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi, described Kerry’s efforts as part of the US building up “global leadership on the climate change agenda”.
Indeed, Washington has made a visible push recently to get other countries on board – including by urging the adoption of net-zero targets that specify a date by which nations pledge to “balance” their greenhouse gas emissions by offsetting them or absorbing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere.