Name? Bhupender Yadav
Westphalian identity? Indian
Age? 52
Why is he in the news? As the COP 26 Summit in Glasgow ended, many were left disappointed, largely due to semantic changes made by the Indian Minister for Environment, Bhupender Yadav. The alterations changed the document to read “phase down” instead of “phase out” regarding coal consumption. Following the summit, Yadav expressed that the summit was a “success” as it was able to give the developing world a platform.
Why do we care? With 70% of India’s energy coming from coal, it would be an incredible task for India to completely flip its energy production. Especially when we keep in mind that we aim to electrify the lives of 1,4 billion people including heating, transportation and its industry amidst constantly increasing energy consumption. Not that we are big fans of coal, the contrary to be exact, but Yadav has a point from the developing world perspective.
Why should you care? Global Warming duh?! But at the same time every country should carry their fair share. Definitely taking into account that some others have polluted a lot earlier and a lot more than India. You should care 10/10!
Who else cares? Xi Jinping because he sided with Yadav and India in changing the language of the document. Especially after energy shortages in China last month, which were partly due to too ambitious climate goals. Climate action must be accepted by the population, which is difficult to sell for any leader when citizens can no longer afford to heat their homes.
Any further comments? So what did the COP26 achieve? Indeed, Yadav watered down the intentions on coal. However, countries (including Brasil) committed to ending deforestation by 2030 and agreed on net-zero pledges for the first time (setting an end year for overproducing C02). Of course, concrete numbers are missing but at least we have 200+ countries agreeing, that does not happen too often.
