Despite fears of cancellation due to covid-19, India to play a big role in COP26: CEEW head

NEW DELHI: Despite fears of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNCCC) getting cancelled in the wake of the spread of novel coronavirus, India will have a huge part to play in the global summit.

However, India is not expected to make a decision on its carbon targets before other major countries do, according to Arunabha Ghosh, CEO of Council on Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW) said.

“India is going to come under increasing pressure to submit an upgraded NDC (nationally determined contribution). I don’t see it likely that it is going to do that in 2020, till it sees what other countries do,” Ghosh said.


The UNCCC, or COP26 as the Glasgow, Scotland edition is called, is supposed to be held in November later this year. It is the last climate conference before the levels set for Paris Agreement are scheduled to come into play.

Following US President Donald Trump’s pulling out of the agreement after coming into office, the entire ethos of the Paris Agreement has been lost, Ghosh said.

Apart from the US, other developing countries such as Brazil have questioned the agreement. Both China and Germany’s emissions dropped for a bit, but then have steadily risen since.

“All this culminated with COP25 in Madrid in late 2019, which demonstrated that we really had not put in place the nuts and bolts that could operationalise the agreement, which now completely changes the context for COP26,” Ghosh said.

Since 2015, investments in clean energy have beaten thermal and fossil- the traditional sources of power. “We are averaging around $10 to $11 billion annually, but to meet our existing targets we will need at least $30 billion a year in investments,” he said.

However, with growing concerns over non-payment of dues to distribution companies (discoms), the renewable market remains wary of further investments.

“Figuring out a way to de-risk investments in India, whether through policy measures, regulatory fixes, central and state guarantees, improved grid or even combining projects with other countries, are things India should be looking at,” Ghosh said.