Do WTO Like You Did COP

India is smart in its climate policy. In trade policy it’s hobbled by protectionism

- Sanjaya Baru

In proactively putting forward an agenda for long-term action to reduce carbon emissions and deal with the challenge of global warming, Prime Minister Narendra Modi placed India at an interesting spot in COP26. He won the approval of developed countries by promising to do more, in a time-bound manner, and the support of developing countries by articulating their demands of developed industrial economies, asking them to do their bit first.

India’s innovative ‘panchamrit’ proposals define the views of a low-income developing country seeking adequate space for its development against Western attempts to impose curbs that would limit India’s development options. Not surprisingly the developing country's critique of the Western climate change agenda has borrowed terms from radical Third World discourse like ‘carbon colonialism’ and ‘carbon imperialism’.

By offering to do more within a framework of equity and climate justice India has tried to walk on two legs, disarming critics from the North while voicing the concerns of the South.

Later this month, India will find itself once again having to adopt positions at variance with those of developed industrial economies at the 12th ministerial conference (MC12) of the World Trade Organisation.

However, the traditional North-South divide in multilateral trade negotiations has been blurred by growing criticism from both countries of the North and the South of what they view as the Modi government’s proclivity towards protectionism, exemplified by the raising of average applied tariff over the past four years, as part of its ‘atmanirbharta’ agenda.