When the Heads of the G20 Countries descend in New Delhi on September 9-10 to take forward Indian Presidency’s key deliverables including sustainable development goals, green development, MDB reforms and digital public infrastructure, India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant hopes that a consensus will be reached on the language with regard to the conflict in Ukraine. Among the pressing challenges, India has highlighted that climate financing to the tune of $5.8-5.9 trillion is required for developing countries, India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant tells FE’s Prasanta Sahu. Edited excerpts.
Sectoral meetings are nearly over ahead of the G20 Leaders’ Summit next month. Could you highlight the key deliverables targeted by India and their status now?
The goal of the Indian presidency has been to bring the G20 together as a problem-solving body for cascading and interlinked crises and build a resilient, sustainable and inclusive world. This clear vision enabled a cross-cutting approach across Working Groups in a whole government approach. In line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of delivering an ambitious, inclusive, decisive and action-oriented presidency, we had 6 key priority buckets across which all the outcomes are being agreed upon. These include: Strong, Sustainable, Balanced and Inclusive Growth; Accelerating Progress on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); Green Development Pact for a Sustainable Future; Multilateral Institutions for the 21st Century; Technological Transformation & Digital Public Infrastructure and Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women.
Elements of Green Development such as principles of LiFEstyles for Sustainable Development (LiFE) were adopted by the Development Ministerial. We have garnered consensus on many issues including Deccan High-Level Principles to strengthen food security, high-level principles for blue economy, disaster risk reduction, green hydrogen ecosystem and alternate fuels. Ambitious renewable energy targets and mobilisation of adequate climate finance are being discussed at the relevant WGs in both finance and Sherpa tracks.
India’s presidency has been vocal about the reversal of progress on SDGs and we are committed to getting the world to deliver on them. In line with our priority, the G20 development ministers have adopted the 2023 Action Plan on Accelerating Progress on SDGs which is bound to pave the path for all our interconnected priorities.
For our priority of Gender Equality and Empowering All Women and Girls, we have a broader agreement from all the countries for halving the digital gender gap, closing the gender pay gap and Action Plan on Sustainable Development through gender equality and empowerment of women, amongst others.
We will aim to achieve an agreement for our key deliverables on Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), Global Digital Health Initiative, Building Cities of Tomorrow and One Health in the due course. India’s G20 presidency strives to scale the solutions of our innovation and development in cooperation with our G20 member countries. India’s solutions to our problems and efforts to achieve consensus on ambitious outcomes are being recognised and supported by all the G20 members, especially the developing countries of the Global South.
What could be the reason for the rather slow progress in giving quicker relief to debt-stressed countries like Sri Lanka?
The presidency has highlighted the increasingly worsening case of debt distress in the Global South with IMF reporting 11 countries are in debt distress, 25 countries are at high risk, 26 countries are at moderate risk, and 7 countries are at low risk of debt distress as of June 2023. However, this number could worsen as the global growth slows.
The G20 is working on putting together a global debt landscape as part of the finance track outcomes. India has already set an example by helping Sri Lanka through its extended line of credit which helped them secure the IMF bailout and put them on track to restructure their debt in the near future. G20’s Common Framework has also helped in pacing the path for Zambia’s debt restructuring. We are committed to making this framework more inclusive and effective at the G20 and we hope this will expedite giving quicker relief to debt-stressed countries like Sri Lanka.
The unfulfilled $100 billion climate funding pledge by developed countries to developing countries inspires little confidence that they will allocate more resources for MDBs or to developing economies…
This pledge was made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2009 and was supposed to be achieved by 2020.
However, the actual disbursement of funds has fallen short of this target, leading to scepticism about developed countries’ willingness to allocate resources to support mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing economies
This deadline was then extended to 2025, with a view to setting a new global climate finance goal by 2025.
As Prime Minister Modi emphasised at COP21 promises made to date regarding climate finance have proved to be hollow. While we all are raising our ambitions on climate action, the world’s ambitions on climate finance cannot remain the same as they were at the time of the Paris Agreement.
As part of our G20 efforts, we want to set an ambitious, transparent and trackable New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) of climate finance in 2024, from a floor of USD 100 billion a year, taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries in fulfilling the objective of the UNFCCC and implementation of the Paris Agreement.
We are working closely with the G20 countries in highlighting the actual need for climate finance, which now sits at trillions of dollars, as opposed to the pledge to support of only billions.
We have highlighted that USD 5.8-5.9 trillion in the pre-2030 period is required for developing countries, in particular for their needs to implement their NDCs by 2030.
As we understand that developing countries like India will require scaled-up adaptation finance. We have also urged the developed countries to fulfil their commitment to at least double their collective provision of adaptation finance from 2019 levels by 2025.
As part of our priority of MDB reforms for the 21st Century, we have strongly urged for a substantial increase of capital base and concessional financing from MDBs to the developing countries towards climate action and building better MDBs with enhanced vision, operating models and financial capacity.
The expert group on MDBs appointed by Indian Presidency has estimated an annual requirement of an additional $3 trillion for SDGs and other emerging challenges. How much additional annual funding is needed for India for these purposes?
It is extremely crucial to note that countries of the Global South are extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change. We believe there needs to be a balance between mitigation and adaptation activities.
The UN has announced a $3.1 billion dollars plan to cover everyone with early warning systems in the next five years by bolstering countries’ ability to prepare for hazardous weather. In this aspect the presidency is also working to get consensus to significantly improve adaptation finance by taking efforts towards commitment of at least doubling the collective provision of adaptation finance from 2019 levels by 2025.
As per our previous NDCs, we estimated a need for 2.5 trillion US dollars from 2015 to 2030 or roughly 170 billion dollars per year for climate action. India has showcased a remarkable accomplishment by achieving its First NDC Nine Years Ahead of Schedule, however pushing our efforts towards climate change ahead, India is adopting ambitious NDC targets.
India is committed to cutting down the Emissions Intensity of its GDP by 45% by 2030. Furthermore, we aim to achieve about 50% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030.
These ambitions will require significantly higher financing than previously estimated, we are committed to leveraging both public and private funds to drive climate and development action.
The Global South’s push for reform of multilateral and international financial institutions is crucial. Better mechanisms at IFIs to engage private finance through efficient mechanisms such as blended financing and hedging are important.
What are the outcomes expected next month on DPI and cryptocurrencies?
Some of the expected outcomes for DPI include: Common DPI framework; Global Digital Public Infrastructure Repository (GDPIR); Financing and capacity building to help LMICs design, build and regulate DPI; HLPs for a safe, trusted, and resilient digital economy; Common Cyber Education and Awareness Toolkit and Global Initiative on Digital Health
Regarding the outcomes of the cryptocurrencies, it is a priority outcome of the finance track and the finance ministry is leading the negotiation on the same.
Ukraine seems to be standing in the way of a G20 Communique. Will India overcome the challenge at the leaders’ summit next month?
We are closely working with members of the G20 to drive consensus on the geopolitical language/paragraphs as part of this year’s G20 Communique and we hope to reach an agreement soon. Prime Minister Modi emphasised in Bali that this is not an era of war, and we continue to uphold this belief.
Why India is batting for the inclusion of the African Union to be a member of the G20? Will it succeed?
It is under Prime Minister Modi’s stewardship, that India has taken up the cudgels for the Global South. Our Presidency aims to give their concerns adequate voice and representation. At the Voice of the Global South Summit convened by India, Prime Minister Modi emphasised that the nations of the global South have much to learn from one another.
PM Modi has led from the front on the issue of the inclusion of the African Union (AU) as a permanent member of the G20. He has also pushed for the incorporation of priorities of African countries as part of the G20’s agenda.
Africa is on track to become an economic superpower in the coming years. With six of the world’s 12 fastest-growing countries located in Africa, the continent is experiencing unprecedented economic growth. Africa needs to be at the centre of the development agenda as the continent’s population is getting younger and their upcoming demographic dividend requires solid foundations. As a global economic forum, a lack of permanent membership for the African Union would mean missing out on a significant opportunity to drive inclusive development for the G20.
India has showcased solidarity and driven cooperation with Africa in numerous ways including. AU is India’s 4th largest trading partner and as the voice of Global South, facilitating this accession would be a strategic win for India. AU’s inclusion ties into India’s advocacy of multilateral reforms – starting with making G20 more inclusive. AU countries are best suited to adopt India’s DPI -also counter China through soft power. Possible shifting of the balance of power from China to India vis-a-vis Africa.