Is It Time For A GST Council-Like Body For Climate Action?

Maharashtra's 31-year-old environment minister is leading calls for a statutory body, on the lines of the Goods and Services Tax Council, to improve coordination between states and Centre on climate issues.

In a letter written to India's Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav in April, Aaditya Thackeray proposed forming a National Council for Climate Change to be chaired by the prime minister and includes environment ministers of all states.

"Such a council will bring together all states to climate action and achieve the Prime Minister's Panchamrit vision," said the letter reviewed by BQ Prime. "Additionally, this will bolster the confidence of investors globally for India's commitment to a low-carbon and climate-resilient pathway, with the result of attracting green finance to our country."

Thackeray is not alone. State ministers of Tamil Nadu and Meghalaya also spoke of the need to have better state-centre co-ordination.

Their view stems from the fact that a lot of areas, including energy and agriculture, where action is needed come under the purview of the states. And they need to have a say in policymaking.

"While states have several items on their list, a lot of power and capacity lies with the centre. They call the shots on policy direction, that's where the money comes from," said Aditya Pillai, Associate Fellow at the Centre for Policy and Research. "Because of this sort of dissonance, you're left with an institutional need for these two areas of the government to talk to each other."

Real implementation, too, takes places at sub-national level. Again, states’ ability to execute needs to be taken into account.

Much of the communication over climate is one-directional. "The [central] environment ministry organises national-level knowledge-sharing workshops where state representatives are expected to pitch in," said Polash Mukerjee, lead of climate resilience and air quality at NRDC India. "But it is usually not a council-like atmosphere where there is two-way communication."

Unless the central targets and states’ capabilities are aligned, the country will see piecemeal progress, according to policy experts. Just like India’s much-talked 175-gigawatt renewable target by 2022. India is likely to miss with 27 states not even meeting half of their respective levels. That too after redesignating large hydel projects as renewable.

Still, a GST-like climate action body will just be a start. As there is no real coordination even between the central ministries, let alone states.

A Prime Minister Narendra Modi-headed climate change council, that includes 18 representatives from various ministries, last met in 2015. There is also no information on what an apex committee set up to achieve 2015 Paris pact targets does. And a centre-state council set up in 1990 lies dormant.

Without states being roped into national-level policymaking, they are left with little compelling reasons to create robust state action plans, said Lubaina Rangwala, program head of urban development at WRI India. "It is high time we have a national level setup which allows for enough democratic room for states and cities to curate this agenda for their own geographies in much more contextual ways."

Risk Of A Stalemate

A council on climate runs the risk states and centre failing to reach consensus, delaying necessary action.

"It'll default to the status quo where states say we need more money and the centre says we'll try and make whatever's available." said Pillai of Centre for Policy and Research. "You'll end up with a stalemate."

Devolution of revenue from centre to states is a matter for the Finance Commission, which in recent years has started allocating funds for climate disasters and pollution.

But according to Vaibhav Chaturvedi, fellow at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, anything with "distributional consequences" will be always contested. "Someone will always feel they haven't been given what they want. That doesn't mean the process is bad. In any deliberative process, you can expect such a thing to happen."

He said, however, that whatever shape the council takes, it should never supersede the sovereign power of the states. "At the end of the day, this is a body for deliberation, exchange of information, co-ordination, for taking collective decisions, learning from each other. It can only nudge states, it cannot really impose anything on states."

Is It Even Needed?

Navroz K Dubash, professor at CPR India, said that before even such a council is formed, states need to figure out their priorities.

States, whose own action plans right now read like "laundry lists", may not be ready for such an institution. "In the hierarchy of requirements building capacity and states identifying their interests precede co-ordination across states and centre."

Mukerjee agreed that capacity is a big worry as the funds that flow to climate departments of states are often left underutilised or diverted to other uses. "The forum should start at the knowledge-sharing level. At the decision level it would definitely benefit in the long run but unless we have capacity to carry out those decisions, it doesn't make sense."

It would be a "pity" if such a council ends up being just a forum for squabbling over finance, Dubash said. "A lot of things that can be done are not in the realm of climate finance. If you're talking about crop resilience, is it really a question of finance? Or is it a question of thinking through crop choices and the minimum support price system?"

Dubash sees merit in forming such a body as it could nudge states towards the direction of identifying their priorities. But there is a flip side too.

"It may light a fire under people," he said. "But the way people react when you light a fire under them is not entirely the way you want them to react."

Another key question lawmakers will have to answer is where to draw the line on the powers of such a council. "Will it replicate functions of existing federal institutions? Or will it just be a strategy body where we come up with strategies, which are also necessary?" Pillai said. "But then what happens to the inter-state council which is a body that was established exactly for this? You're left with more questions than answers."

Supporting climate legislation could be one way to help answer those, but the policy experts said that it will have to be an enabling one and not one that forces mandates. There will be a need for regional flexibility.

"I wouldn't imagine the council to get into micromanaging decisions for states because that could be a problem," Rangwala said. "A lot of times when legislations are built at the national level, those could be impractical in different jurisdictions. Keeping things open is important."

There has been some movement at the central level around this.

Power Minister RK Singh has asked chief ministers to set up state-level steering committees for energy transition and work out a strategy. Three ministries—environment, earth sciences, and science and technology—are set to form a consortium for sharing research and frame policies on mitigation and adaption. An attempt has also been made to revive the inter-state council, with Amit Shah acting as chairman of the standing committee.

But Pillai doubts things will change anytime soon. "Something like this will take time," he said. "There's a certain political moment where something like this becomes viable, and I don't think we're there just yet."