FULL VIDEO OF DISCUSSION WITH PROFESSOR KELLY SIMS GALLAGHER, AMBASSADOR SHIVSHANKAR MENON, PROFESSOR AMBUJ SAGAR AND PROFESSOR NAVROZ K DUBASH
CLIMATE CHANGE INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
On 6 March 2019, the Initiative on Climate, Energy and Environment (ICEE) at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) organized a discussion on the recently-released book, ‘Titans of the Climate: Explaining Policy Process in the United States and China’ by Kelly Sims Gallagher and Xioawei Xuan.
The panellists were Professor Kelly Sims Gallagher (Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University), Ambassador Shivshankar Menon (Former National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister and former Foreign Secretary of India), and Professor Ambuj Sagar (Founding Head, School of Public Policy at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi). The panel was moderated by Professor Navroz K Dubash (Professor, Centre for Policy Research).
Among other things, the panel discussed international climate politics, and US-China relations in the broader context of climate policy.
About the Book
The United States and China together account for a disproportionate 45 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. In 2014, then-President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced complementary efforts to limit emissions, paving the way for the Paris Agreement. And yet, with President Trump’s planned withdrawal from the Paris accords and Xi’s consolidation of power—as well as mutual mistrust fueled by misunderstanding—the climate future is uncertain. In Titans of the Climate, Kelly Sims Gallagher and Xiaowei Xuan examine how the planet’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters develop and implement climate policy. Through dispassionate analysis, the authors aim to help readers understand the challenges, constraints, and opportunities in each country. They make the case that if each country understands more about the other’s goals and constraints, climate policy cooperation is more likely to succeed. Read more here.
About the Speakers
Kelly Sims Gallagher is Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She directs the Climate Policy Lab and the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at Fletcher. From 2014 to 2015 she served as Senior Policy Adviser in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and in the U.S. State Department’s Senior Envoy for Climate Change Office. She is the author of China Shifts Gears and The Globalization of Clean Energy Technology, both published by the MIT Press.
Ambassador Shivshankar Menon served as National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of India from January 2010 to May 2014, and was Foreign Secretary of India from October 2006 to July 2009. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Ashoka University, a Distinguished Fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings India, and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Institute of Chinese Studies in New Delhi. His long career in public service spans diplomacy, national security, atomic energy, disarmament policy, and India’s relations with its neighbors and major global powers. He is the author of Choices: Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy, which was published by Penguin Random House in 2016.
Ambuj Sagar is the Vipula and Mahesh Chaturvedi Professor of Policy Studies and the founding Head of the School of Public Policy at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Ambuj’s interests broadly lie at the intersection of technology and development. His recent work has focused on innovation policy for meeting sustainability and inclusivity challenges, energy innovation policy and strategies (in areas such as biofuels, clean cookstoves, coal power, automobiles, and institutional mechanisms such as climate innovation centers), climate change policy and politics, capacity development, and higher education policy.
Navroz K Dubash is a Professor at the Centre for Policy Research. He works on climate change policy and governance, the political economy of energy and water, and the regulatory state in the developing world. Widely published in these areas, Navroz serves on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a Coordinating Lead Author. In 2015, he was conferred the 12th T N Khoshoo Memorial Award for his work on climate change policy. His most recent book (co-edited with Sunila Kale and Ranjit Bharvirkar) examines the political economy of electricity in India’s states, and a forthcoming edited volume will examine climate politics, policy and governance in India.
