On Day 2 of Climate Summit, India holds its ground

India, on the second day of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21), Paris, stood its ground as a voice for the energy needs of the developing nations, even as French President Francois Hollande seemed to back it in his speech.

Speaking at the opening of the Leader's Event segment on the first day of the 21st meeting, Hollande, heavily invested in the success of these talks, said that the agreement that emerged from Paris should be universal but differentiated and binding, where "developed countries must take the lead and developing countries must be supported in adapting". "Hence, the need to finance climate actions," he said, highlighting the developed world's historical responsibility as having emitted the greenhouse gases for years.

Hollande also said that finance needed to be cleared for technology transfer, enabling the developing nations to have easier and cheaper access to clean energy. This is what India has been demanding, as laid out by India's chief negotiator Ajay Mathur, in a video interview in Paris. The agreement, he said must protect the interests of millions of people in India, and ensure "adequate affordable energy" to increase the quality of life, especially of communities such as farmers and fishermen, who live by the coast.

It was important for India and the developing nations to have access to "financial support and technological access" so as to accelerate the pace of their efforts, to achieve results quicker.

Mathur also called on countries to submitted periodic Intended Nationally determined Contributions (INDCs), each "more ambitious" than the last. This in the light of the fact the current INDCs will fall short of limiting global warming to below 2 degree celsius. He called on the developed countries to "enhance" their INDCs for 2030, and for a global stocktaking that would point the countries in the right direction for the next set of INDCs.

The key was, Mathur said, that no country should be able to walk out of their commitments of goals, as many did when they found they could not fulfill the goals of the Kyoto Protocol. There has been talk of Paris exploring a legal binding on countries to fulfill their INDCs, currently a voluntary commitment.

However, the talk of freeing up finances for developing nations also touched a nerve with India. Hollande spoke of the $100 billion that rich nations had pledged at the Copenhagen summit in 2009 (COP15), as financial assistance by 2020, to cut greenhouse emissions. He said that in Paris, financial resources must be freed and guarantees on their sources and availability must be provided for developing nations. Last year, a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said that $60 billion had already been mobilised through various institutions. This India has found flawed. At the ADP2 spin off session on Monday, India claimed to be not amused by these claims.

Some of the ill-will India garnered after the Copenhagen talks failed, for being "obstructionist" seemed to have continued as an undercurrent in Paris, as the developed world continues to see India as having taken an "uncompromising position" as labelled by the New York Times. However, India has staked out its role as sharing energy with the rest of the developing world, with the first meeting of the steering committee of the International Solar Alliance held today. Twenty two nations from Asia, Africa and the Americas participated, and the next meeting is be held in Abu Dhabi.