With the presidentship of the G-20, India missed out on an opportunity on showing astute leadership in setting stricter norms for climate change mitigation by not adopting a clockwork-type mechanism for the G-20 countries that account for 80% of greenhouse gas emissions. Ideally, a model to use greater, but with greater safety measures in place, nuclear power as a stop-gap measure, since nuclear reactor fuels are not renewable, while simultaneously resorting to stage-wise but faster phasing out of fossil fuel generated power, while setting the stage for greater use of solar power as well as wind turbine energy which should become the norm later, being renewable sources of energy.
This step along with faster phasing out of petrol and diesel in transportation to electric vehicles as well as faster development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would lead to the entire world reducing global warming by faster reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and thus setting more urgent timelines that would save the world from heatwaves, wildfires and related weather anomalies, which would have catapulted India into a more responsible entity in the G-20, through better leadership to contain climate change, an urgent need of the times.
