HT G20 Agenda: Adaptation measures key to robust climate response

India’s G20 presidency comes before the Global Stocktake at COP28 and at the midpoint for achieving the goals laid out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. India’s G20 leadership will be based on the five pillars of the Green Development Pact: Lifestyle of Environment (LiFE), circular economy, climate finance, accelerating progress on sustainable development goals (SDGs), and energy transitions and energy security. All these pillars are needed to strengthen action towards energy transitions. But to have a full-fledged climate response, more action is required.

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The Global Stocktake at COP28 will largely focus on mitigation and emission reduction goals rather than adaptation since the global goals for adaptation, loss and damage funding mechanisms are still being discussed. But while we debate, the impact of rapid warming — an increase of 1.1° Celsius since 1880 — is already being felt across the world, affecting communities and people least responsible for the problem. That’s why, along with mitigation, developing adaptation measures is crucial to helping the communities bear the brunt of climate change.

The world must make progress on adaptation, and loss and damage funding, at COP28 so that the next Global Stocktake is based on a more holistic climate response and future assessments can duly account for these critical factors. As India prepares to host the G20 Summit this September, and the United Arab Emirates prepares to host COP28 in November, three main considerations need to drive conversations.

Firstly, the question of equity is central to climate justice because it is often the people who contribute the least to emissions who feel their impact the most. A composite index on lifestyles developed by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) — based on consumption in food, transportation, and household energy, as well as waste management — found that India has the lowest consumption among G20 countries.

Reports from the Global Carbon Project also point to the massive disparities among countries in terms of country-level carbon emissions and per capita emissions. For instance, in 2021, India’s CO2 emissions were 1.9 tonnes per person — much lower than the world average of 4.7 tonnes per person. The idea of just green transitions should incorporate both environmental and social elements to capture the intersectional implications of the climate crisis. Keeping these elements in mind, it is essential that the global climate regime accounts for not only country-centric approaches but also people-centric approaches.

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Secondly, initiatives such as the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) launched at COP26 are actively focusing on financial mechanisms for supply-side energy transitions. It is imperative for discussions around energy transitions to also have a stronger emphasis on mechanisms for supporting disadvantaged communities.

For example, the Extreme Heat Income Insurance program, launched by Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center and supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, is deploying a resilience tool to replace income lost to climate change-driven extreme heat. This mechanism largely supports women in the informal sector, ensuring that they do not have to choose between their health and their family’s financial security.

Innovative mechanisms such as extreme heat income insurance are essential to making progress on adaptation, but we need more of them. The finance commission and the Union Budget have both emphasised the importance of green growth, which involves rethinking growth strategies to emphasise both environmental sustainability and the availability of natural resources to poor and vulnerable groups.

Vulnerability is a key lens in understanding inclusive just green transitions. Much of the international mandates at climate negotiations are for countries and country groupings, but not people. The global climate regime must work towards the benefit of vulnerable people and communities.

Solutions such as biofuels can play a key role in this mission, especially for a country with meagre fossil fuel reserves and a huge import bill. If crop residue can be converted into fuel, it is a win-win situation not only from the energy perspective but also from the pollution one. Unfortunately, the health department works independently of the fuel sector, and as a result, there is not enough focus on the impact of crop residue burning on air pollution and people’s health. Agricultural waste is actually a wealth provided one can work on the entire value chain to ensure it can be used as biofuel. Through taller and bigger trees, you can fix more carbon dioxide in the soil and at the same time use biomass for biofuel. A problem with Biofuels was that it was more expensive than conventional fuel. Until five years ago, India had to import an enzyme needed to produce biofuel but now there exists a system under the department of biotechnology. Algae is one of the fastest-growing species that can be grown in saline water and the rate of fixation of carbon dioxide in the case of algae is much higher than other terrestrial plants. Algae can be considered as biofuels.

Thirdly, in 2009, as a part of the Copenhagen Accord, developed countries committed to a goal of mobilising $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries. This funding would come from a wide variety of sources: Public and private, bilateral and multilateral, and alternative sources of finance.

However, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the total climate finance provided and mobilised by developed countries in 2020 only amounted to $83.3 billion. Of this, 82% came from public finance, 16% from private finance, and only 2% from other sources. And 58% ($48.6 billion) of this financing was for mitigation, while only 34% ($28.6 billion) was for adaptation.

The key issue of defining climate finance also needs to be resolved. The New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) for developed countries’ assistance to developing countries will start in 2025. NCQG must consider the need to relook at the global commitment to adaptation finance, where public finance may need to play a larger role.

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While this year’s G20 and COP events are the first stops on a much longer road, both should be seen as opportunities for honest introspection on the holistic measures needed in adaptation, mitigation, loss and damage, and climate finance — so we can ensure that no one is left behind in the transition to a greener world.

Vibha Dhawan is director general, TERI; Deepali Khanna is vice president, Asia Regional Office, The Rockefeller Foundation. Shailly Kedia, a senior fellow and associate director, TERI, also contributed to this article. The views expressed are personal.