India’s ambitions and possibilities of becoming a global green leader (INDGREEN)

INDGREEN investigates India's commitments to global climate governance and sustainable development and will provide new knowledge about avenues for India's green global leadership. Climate change mitigation in India is essential for the world's possibility to reach the Paris Agreement's target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees. At the same time India needs economic growth and development to reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs) and provide sound, sustainable and just living conditions to all to its inhabitants. In the INDGREEN project we study how Indian actors at local, national and international level act in relation to these trade-offs, and how local/national conditions influence India's international climate role. INDGREEN takes an interdisciplinary social science approach. First, we investigate India's role in the international climate negotiations and bilateral climate cooperation, aiming to understand India's willingness and ability to take a global green leadership role. After India delivered updated Nationally Determined Contributions to the process under the Paris Agreement in 2022, we have specifically focused on two initiatives that are part of a polycentric climate governance regime post Paris: The International Solar Alliance (ISA) that is led by India, and the Just Energy Transition Partnership that is led by G7. We analyse India's role in these initiatives. The ISA focuses in particular on financing to solar energy projects in Africa, and we have participated in several meetings between the ISA and different European, African, and international finance actors. Second, we study to what extent institutional capacity and conflicting domestic policy goals drive or hinder the 'ratcheting up' of India's Nationally Determined Contributions to global climate change mitigation. The PhD student in the project has specified her project to focus on solar energy and how local solar energy projects influence existing inequalities. The data collection in the project was much delayed by COVID-19, but the PhD student and the team at TERI SAS has now made field visits and collected data. This year we have also hired a research assistant at TERI SAS that will do field work for a study of energy efficiency in the Indian brick sector. We have also had several meetings, held presentations and seminars, and a hybrid project workshop in Oslo. In February 2023 CICERO and TERI SAS held a joint workshop in New Delhi with participants from Indian governmental agencies, research institutions, and civil society organizations, as well as the Norwegian Embassy. From this workshop we got very useful input to our research on both domestic and international processes. We also continuously follow India's climate diplomacy and have collected observation data at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh in 2022, and several of the project’s researchers will travel to COP28 in Dubai in December. At COP28 we will hold two so-called side events, where we will present tentative findings from the research in the project.

INDGREEN will provide new knowledge about avenues for India’s green global leadership. The project will connect the research frontiers on climate leadership and polycentric climate governance with in-depth empirical research on climate policy development in India. India has grown to become a key actor in global climate governance. Compared to other large emitters of GHGs (US, EU and China) India’s developmental leap just started, and understanding the relationship between India’s handling of the required low-carbon domestic development and its international climate role is essential for generating knowledge on the likelihood of India becoming a global green leader – or laggard. Addressing India’s ability to fulfill its triple ambitions of economic growth, a green domestic transition and international green leadership within the limits of the global carbon budget, this project investigates India’s commitments to global climate governance and sustainable development. INDGREEN will employ an interdisciplinary social-science approach to explore how the new international climate regime (the Paris agreement) interacts with progressing domestic climate policies to influence India’s ambitions and possibilities of becoming a global green leader. The research strategy is to perform analysis at multiple governance levels to ensure encompassing and societally relevant knowledge building. In particular, INDGREEN explores, first, to what extent India aims to become a transformational leader and front-runner that forge strong international climate leadership and facilitate collective agency towards common goals. Second, how bilateral and club-like climate initiatives across multiple governance levels and different types of actors may contribute to India’s possibilities of becoming a green leader. Third, to what extent institutional capacity and conflicting domestic policy goals will determine India’s ability and willingness to “ratchet up” its NDC over the next decade.