In the popular children’s fairy tale, Snow White, the evil queen often asks her magical mirror, “Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”. The mirror tells the queen that she is, until one day when she isn’t, and Snow White is. In its painful recreation in the modern world, the metaphorical mirror is often asked who’s the “greenest”, and the answer has to be “You – my developed world”, until some day, when it says, “Eh, sorry, that’s not green.”
From the looks of it, the climate debate has warmed up more than the climate itself, and developing countries like India are at its forefront. Global plans and strategies are in place. Some pledges have been made by developed countries, while developing countries have been implored to reduce carbon emissions “to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels” through Nationally Determined Contribution commitments. Yet, the climate idealists, who advocate for ambitious and immediate action to combat climate change, seem to have met their match with climate realists, who prioritise practical and achievable solutions.
In the middle of these, developing countries like India stand on precarious ground. Sustainable in ethos, we find ourselves surprised at the crossroads of having to address economically what we have always believed and practised philosophically. As the fifth-largest economy in the world, expected to become the third largest before 2030, our energy needs are expected to grow about 1.5 times faster than the global average in the next 30 years. Therefore, our developmental requirements stand head-to-head with our climate commitments, and we have to continually resist being swayed by the characterisation of being one of the largest polluters. It’s a delicate balance that we must strike.
The accepted pathways for achieving the target, popularly called “climate adaptation” and “climate mitigation”, are a bouquet of strategies primarily centred on shifting energy sources, regenerative and environmental practices, and protecting natural ecosystems. Climate adaptation involves adjusting to the effects of climate change, while climate mitigation focuses on reducing the causes of climate change. However, the interesting point about the climate debate has been that before pledging billions of dollars, no one seems to have asked a fundamental question: Is the adopted strategy optimal and in everyone’s interest?
In this context, Chapter 13 of the Economic Survey — a Special Essay on Climate and Mission LiFE — examines threadbare the issues hidden in the chosen Goldilocks mean. The chapter contrives to understand the flaws hidden in the accepted pathways, the lack of logical thought processes in the opposing strategies adopted by the developed world, and the inadequacy of consensus on the ideas around climate change. India has, time and again, stood firm on the principle of historical emissions. The developed world used global resources in the most destructive ways possible to usher in a capitalist’s dream and get the world to the point it is at now. But it refuses to accept any responsibility for this. The so-called Climate Pledges are fraught with issues – insufficient in quantum, in the form of loans than grants, riddled with conditions, and aimed at profit maximisation rather than green intensification. Plus, of course, there’s a hidden “no” behind all the “yeses” as recently evidenced by the discussions in the run-up to COP29. The US and other Western countries have reportedly pushed to make the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) contributions “voluntary” for those who “choose to pay”.
However, the best-kept secret in all this is what the Mirror knows: To correct wrongs done to nature, one must go back to it. This means adopting a life strategy that is in accordance with nature instead of only focusing on a few industrial pathways. Strategies that are inherently sustainable — such as plant-based consumption, efficient agricultural and livestock production, not using toilet paper, consuming less, and questioning our energy-guzzling technologies — are not what the climate advocates advocate. In fact, it’s ironic that the same developed world that evaluates progress on a per-capita basis on almost all fronts does not acknowledge emissions comparison on the same metric. India’s per-capita carbon emissions are significantly low at ~2.5 tons compared to the global average of 6.3 tons. Chapter 13 in the Economic Survey assesses the overall and per-capita comparison of countries considered high on the green index.
This is where India must step back and reevaluate its options because, if it were to change the lifestyle of its large population and mimic the energy-consuming unsustainable patterns of the developed world, it would soon run into a massive problem. This means countries must undertake a cost-benefit analysis of consumption choices. Producing one kg of beef requires 25 kg of feed crop, while one kg of lamb requires 15 kg of feed crop. So, the question of utilising a limited resource like land becomes an economic and sustainable choice rather than a moral one. The essay in the Economic Survey examines this in greater detail.
Hence, accepted climate-suitable pathways need to account for a variety of approaches with optimality at their core. Sustainability is embedded in the Indian traditional ethos and in our belief in the power of small individual actions to make a great difference. India has a great many individual-led sustainable behaviours — using cloth for kitchen cleaning instead of tissue paper, plates made of leaves instead of plastic, water-based toilet cleaning systems, and reusing and upcycling household items. This thought process was at the core of Mission LiFE, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP2026), which seeks to bring individual responsibility to the forefront of the global climate narrative.
The Economic Survey 2024 discusses five ways Mission LiFE can be affected in everyday life through voluntary and policy actions. However, we must go over and above, to deeper and inwards – questioning the root of over-consumption and the desire for profligacy that thinks not a second before disposing of perfectly usable things. For this, there is a need for equanimity — a human’s ability to have the confidence and the power to opt for internal stability and prepare for and accept outside change. Let’s start by reading Chapter 13 of the Economic Survey.
V Anantha Nageswaran is Chief Economic Adviser, Government of India. Aparajita Tripathi is consultant, Ministry of Finance. Views are personal
