EVENTS

Despite attempts to become self-sufficient in green technologies and build resilient supply chains for critical minerals, studies show that India will remain reliant on China in the short and medium term to meet its decarbonisation goals. This has placed India in a conundrum of having to simultaneously compete and cooperate with China to fulfil its climate agenda. To avoid long and short-term shocks that could slow India’s clean-energy transition, it becomes important to evolve a strategic framework for its climate engagement with China. There is a growing understanding on how countries contesting China have found strategic avenues to engage on climate and energy. However, most studies look at the Global North’s interaction with China from a different geopolitical vantage and perspective to best inform the strategies of industrialised countries. This presentation argues for the need to build a body of research that provides evidence-based insights on the opportunities and risks for India to engage with China on climate diplomacy. It highlights the key lessons from the engagement of both countries on climate and clean energy since the 1992 Rio conference. Given current geopolitical realities, previous engagements and/or strategies may not necessarily be the most effective. Rather, India may benefit from reimagining its engagement. This presentation draws upon two expert policy workshops and stakeholder interviews to explicate upon the strategic entry points for cooperation between India and China on climate and energy issues.

Speaker

Pooja Vijay Ramamurthi is a Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP). She has a PhD in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy (STEP) from the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. She looks at the techno-economic, social and political dimensions of the global climate agenda from a multidisciplinary perspective, particularly focusing on how India navigates its climate diplomacy to meet its own climate ambitions as well as to become a climate leader. A recipient of the Prize Fellowship for Social Sciences at Princeton University, she has worked at premier think tanks in India, including the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy and on projects in Ghana and Cambodia. She has also received her double Master’s degree in Sustainable Energy from the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden and Instituto Superior Tecnico, Portugal via the Innoenergy scholarship granted by the European Union.

Chair

Partha Mukhopadhyay is an Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi, and a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research. An economist focused on urbanisation, infrastructure and comparative development in India and China, he has served on and chaired many government committees, published extensively in academic journals and edited volumes and regularly contributes to national media. He has previously worked with the World Bank and EXIM Bank of India, and taught at IIM Ahmedabad, XLRI Jamshedpur, and the School of Planning andArchitecture, Delhi. Dr. Mukhopadhyay holds a PhD in Economics from New York University. His most recent publication is The Modern City: Electric, Smart, and Green, in the India Infrastructure Report 2024: Sustainable Energy Transition – A Way Forward for India’s Power Sector (Bloomsbury 2025).

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