India’s recently withdrew its bid to host COP33, offering no public explanation beyond a vague reference to a “review of commitments”. The Conference of Parties (COP) is the supreme annual decision-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that nearly 200 nations are signatories to.

The move reverses a pledge Prime Minister Narendra Modi made at the Dubai summit in 2023 and abandons India’s stated ambition to lead the Global South on climate diplomacy. The timing could not be worse — at a moment when American climate leadership has effectively collapsed — India is one of the few large economies capable of anchoring global climate ambition.

The decision reflects the familiar anxiety that serious climate commitment comes at the cost of economic growth, and this indeed a valid concern. However, it is a concern worth examining carefully, because the arithmetic turns out to be unfounded.

India now accounts for roughly 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it the world’s third-largest emitter, after China and the United States. Its per capita emissions remain the lowest in the G20 — only an eighth of what the average American produces — and its historical contribution to cumulative atmospheric carbon is just 3%. India clearly did not cause the climate problem. However, as a largely sub-tropical country, with a significant chunk of the population dependent on agriculture, its stakes in the outcome are arguably bigger than any other country in the world.

Heat extremes are intensifying across the country causing unbearable summers and cycles of floods and droughts. The........

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