India not responsible for climate crisis, should not repeat West's mistakes: Commonwealth SG

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland urges India to lead equitable energy transition and avoid replicating polluting Western practices.

India is not historically responsible for the climate crisis, but it should not emulate polluting practices of the West from the 19th century during its development, Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland has said.

In an interview with PTI via Zoom, Ms. Scotland said India has the opportunity to lead a just and equitable energy transition by sharing expertise and technology within the 56-nation club called Commonwealth, which represents 2.7 billion people. She also said that India can exemplify a new, clean and safe development model that can serve as a beacon of hope for the Global South.

"India is a developing country, which was not historically responsible for creating this (climate) crisis. So, India is in a similar position to many of the Global South countries. And that is absolutely true," she said.

Despite not causing the crisis, she said, India is suffering from severe climate consequences, including extreme heat, floods and intense monsoons, and must take action. “Look at the level of heat in some of the cities in India, look at the floods, look at the monsoons. Our people are suffering. So there is a responsibility on all of us, the responsibility which India has committed herself to and has taken action on to make it better,” she noted.

Ms. Scotland told PTI that India should not emulate the West’s development model, which failed and led to the climate crisis. “Why should India wish to emulate that which others have done before ... (and) failed? I would be very disappointed if India was reaching back to 18th and 19th-century solutions and repeating what others have done.”

"It is not going to wash for us to say (that) because they (West) created a nightmare from which we are now suffering and dying... (it) justifies us continuing to do what they did. I think we are better than that," she said.

At the 2015 UN climate talks in Paris, countries committed to limiting the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.