Good COP, Bad COP

Glasgow wasn’t a washout. But on coal, India gained little & let China get away

- Chandra Bhushan

Climate change conferences follow a pattern: They never end on time; they make incremental progress, and there is always a last-minute drama that captures the headlines, drowning the overall assessment of the meeting. COP26 in Glasgow followed the pattern to a tee, though with a little more drama than some of the previous meetings.

Over the next few days, we will read headlines (mainly from Western media) screaming murder on how India weakened the outcome of COP26 by forcing a last-minute amendment that diluted the language on ending coal power. We will also read headlines from India defending this amendment. But in these headlines, consequential decisions made by this COP would be lost. First, though, let’s look at the coal controversy.

In the conference’s closing minutes, a dramatic process to change one paragraph of the final text unfolded, which was started by China, ended by India and decried by many countries. The paragraph relates to the phasing out of coal power. In the final version of the text, “phase-out” of coal power was mentioned.

China was the first to ‘mildly’ object to this paragraph. Then India proposed a new version of the paragraph that replaced “phase-out” with “phase-down” to describe what needs to happen to coal use in power generation. While India’s proposal was accepted, several countries, mainly Europeans and small vulnerable countries, objected to this change, including how it was done. Though the change in the word itself is a non-issue, how India got this done is certainly something that needs introspection.