India's climate change dilemma: Do more while US shrugs off responsibility?

Leading from the front so far, India could be asked to do yet more to fight climate change at its own cost after the dire warnings of the latest IPCC report

In 2015, the Paris Agreement was crafted to suit the demands of the then US government. The agreement, taking the bottoms-up approach, left it to each country to volunteer its best possible effort in the global fight against climate change. No one would dictate how much effort each country must make to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By now, 177 countries, including India, have submitted their targets, which are called the Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs. 

But the latest report of the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that the targets are inadequate to ensure that the global