Global climate policy and local energy politics: is India hiding behind the poor?

Abstract

Along with the large middle-income countries Brazil, China, and South Africa, India has been put under increasing pressure to shoulder parts of the mitigation burden and commit to national emission reduction targets. India, however, refers to its limited capacity and widespread poverty. Is India hiding behind its poor? While others examine the distribution of emissions within the country to answer this question, we study domestic policy making for energy subsidies and access to clean energy. Empirical evidence suggests that domestic policy making is at least partially consistent with the pro-poor arguments advanced at the international level. Given their large number and the country's democratic system, the poor do have some weight in Indian politics. However, pro-poor policies end where they do not translate into greater vote shares. Moreover, India's international position ignores the existing complementarities between climate-friendly and pro-poor activities.

Policy relevance

Despite India's recent growth spurt, its concern to fight energy poverty at home before engaging in any commitments on climate policy at the international level should be taken seriously within the international negotiations. Policy making in India is driven by democratic incentives, which, in this case, work to the benefit of the poor. Pro-poor policies may not go as far as one would wish from a developmental perspective, but the impact of the masses of the poor on domestic policy making is politically significant and cannot be ignored. This also provides some broader lessons for mitigation and adaptation policies in developing countries: politicians respond to incentives and support will only reach the needy if the appropriate incentives are in place. While we observe some significant commitment and implementation problems even in a democratic country like India, such problems must be expected to be even more serious elsewhere. This should not be overlooked when designing institutions for the allocation of climate finance, such as the Green Climate Fund.

Keywords:

• clean cooking
• electrification
• energy politics
• energy subsidies
• international negotiations
• India

Acknowledgements

This article has benefitted from exchange in the framework of the project ‘Challenges of European External Energy Governance with Emerging Powers: Meeting Tiger, Dragon, Lion and Jaguar’ funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. Much of the work was prepared while Katharina Michaelowa was visiting TERI (New Delhi), where she received substantial support from the Indian project members, notably Madhura Joshi, Swati Ganeshan, and Anmol Soni. We are grateful for their help as well as for all the time that other colleagues and several high-level officials and policy makers were ready to spend with us during our interviews. The article also benefitted from some exchange in the framework of the University of Zurich's Research Priority Program (URPP) ‘Asia and Europe’.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here. [10.1080/14693062.2015.1058239]

Notes

1. Note that percentages vary widely depending on sources. While the International Energy Agency (IEA) presents a figure of 25%, the 2011 population census reports that 33% of all households lack access to electricity (Government of India, 2011). Because rural households tend to be bigger than urban ones, the IEA number, which refers to the population share (rather than households), should in fact be even higher. To some extent, different numbers may reflect different definitions of electrification (see also Section 2.2).

2. Interviews with Kariya Munda, Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha, the Bharatatya Janata Party (BJP), and Vijay Prakash Saha, Chairman of the Energy and Environment Committee, Janata Dal (United) (see Appendix). Both confirmed that the protests relate much less to any particular ideological orientation of the parties than to the simple status of being in opposition.

3. For the exact definition, see MoP (2006).

4. Interviews with J.K. Mehta (South Asia Forum for Energy Efficiency), Dhairya Dholakia (TERI), and Ibrahim Rehman (TERI), see list of interviews in the Appendix.

5. Interview with Vivek Jha, area convenor for TERI's rural extension activities (see list of interviews in the Appendix).