India and Climate Change: Old Traditions, New Strategies

Vyoma Jha
Additional contact information
Vyoma Jha: Vyoma Jha is a graduate of the doctoral programme (J.S.D.) at Stanford Law School. She holds law degrees from Stanford Law School, New York University School of Law and National Law University, Jodhpur, India. Her work has been published in journals such as Transnational Environmental Law, Journal of World Investment and Trade and Economic & Political Weekly.

India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs, 2022, vol. 78, issue 2, 280-296

Abstract: Climate change emerged as a serious diplomatic concern for India in the early 1990s. India has since been a staunch champion of the developing world, in multilateral climate negotiations; from playing a key role in establishing the principle of common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities, to forging alliances with countries with shared developmental concerns. Faced with the growing impact of climate change and changing geopolitics, India’s foreign policy on climate change has undergone significant shifts during two decades of multilateral climate talks. First, India’s willingness to undertake domestic climate action as a result of its changing economic status and, second, the role of the political leadership—since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014—in shaping the climate discourse both in the country and abroad. India has, in recent years, shed its defensive, naysayer strategy at climate negotiations and led several multilateral initiatives for climate action. As India celebrates 75 years of its Independence, it is forging a new, confident leadership on issues of climate change. While there is continuity in India’s traditional stance on finance and technology transfer during negotiations, Indian foreign policy has begun to display a marked change in the strategic use of climate change to assert greater power on the global stage.

Keywords: Indian foreign policy; climate change; climate negotiations; negotiation strategy; economic diplomacy; solar energy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09749284221089553 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:indqtr:v:78:y:2022:i:2:p:280-296

DOI: 10.1177/09749284221089553

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().