Thread by @tjayaraman

@ThomasASpencer @tkanitkar @vnamas @nit_set @JMauskar @3rdworldnetwork Useful thread. Some points: I entirely agree with the assessment of the relative economic strengths of India and China. And that India can't be "de-carbonizing" when it has not even carbonized really. 1/n

https://twitter.com/ThomasASpencer/status/1308687768868978689

Thats a good point to make in these hubris ridden times in India. As I have always maintained, India's entrepreneurial and cultivator classes are so backward in productivity that they cannot even "pollute efficiently". 2/n

I only wish you could also convince Indian environmentalists of this -- who celebrate India's productivity crisis as some kind of proto-sustainability, or who, in some "left" hubris, think India can outdo China in climate action. 3/n

The same disease of equating the "dragon and the elephant" afflicts our intellectual class as well, though more due to contagion during their education, than obtained through analytical effort. 4/n

What should India do? First, sectoral peaking year commitments are not meaningful, especially in power and passenger transport which u choose. These two are key to India's emissions and will contribute since other sectors which are hard-to-abate are linked to these two. 5/n

Power is part of the foundations of the whole economy and passenger transport is closely linked to urbanization and the uncertainties there do not permit any easy peaking commitment. Peaking in these sectors is pretty close to an aggregate commitment. 6/n

Second, what we need badly is clarity and consensus in the polity, society and in government, on where we need to reach. When these are lacking, strategy documents written by TERI, MSSRF or by Govt are of little use. Transparency is a big fat red herring. 7/n

Third, it is easier to break relationships than to make them. India and China have held together in the climate arena with good reason. Nor does this mean that we cannot recognize the differences. 8/n

I have always maintained that developing countries are a continuum, and have taken much flak on that score from established climate hands in India, even though there are also common ties. Hang together or hang separately. Will it last? Unclear. But no case to wilfully break. 9/n

What you slightingly refer to as rhetoric, is part of the foundation of global cooperation in climate. If India has not been able to, or had the stomach to, operationalise these principles, the loss is not India's alone, but also the world's. 10/n

A loss that marks the onset of a very inequitable climate regime. Boats don't sail for countries like India. India can robustly stand up to inequitable global regimes. But India's establishment has never thought that climate change merits such effort. 11/n

In sum, India's NDC, declared on independent terms, based on India's responsibilities in the light of equity and CBDR-RC, needs no revision until 2030. Certainly not because China may revise its own. 12/n

As for long term strategy under the Paris Agreement, the terms are sufficiently flexible to allow India to examine its options after the Global Stocktake. This will enable us to gauge our response in the light of the will to action (beyond rhetoric) from the developed countries.