NEW DELHI ¨C India has somehow emerged as the villain of last month¡¯s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), blamed for resisting cuts to coal consumption even as toxic air envelops its capital, New Delhi.
The country¡¯s supposed crime in Glasgow was to join China in insisting on a last-minute change to the conference¡¯s final declaration, in which countries pledged to ¡°phase down¡± rather than ¡°phase out¡± coal. For that, India, whose per capita carbon-dioxide emissions are a fraction of those of the world¡¯s leading emitters, was widely criticized for obstructing the global fight against climate change.
The irony is that India has done far less to intensify the planet¡¯s greenhouse effect than either China or the developed West. True, the country is a major coal consumer, and derives about 70% of its energy from it. But, as recently as 2015, at least a quarter of India¡¯s population couldn¡¯t take for granted what almost everyone in the developed world can: to flick a switch on a wall and be bathed with light.
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