Everything All at Once: India and the Six Simultaneous Global Transitions
By Rajiv Kumar and Ishan Joshi
Rupa Publications, 256 pages, Rs 695

A sense of uncertainty has clearly gripped the world as six transformative global transitions—ranging from geopolitical and geographical to geoeconomic and technological—unfold all at once. Policymakers are scrambling to make sense of these transitions even as people lurch to extremes in these times of insecurity laced with rising inequity. To make matters more complicated, today’s certitudes can evaporate by tomorrow—for countries, companies and citizens alike. ‘Chaos, contestation, and constant recalibration’ will, therefore, be with us for a while yet.

Where does that leave over 800 million young Indians with their burgeoning aspirations? In ‘Everything All At Once: India and the Six Simultaneous Global Transitions’, Rajiv Kumar and Ishan Joshi suggest how India’s national goals could be defined and lay out the difficult but inescapable steps which will be required to achieve them. New Delhi has a historic opportunity to shape the ongoing transitions to its advantage. But the challenges are massive. Business-as-usual just won’t do if we want to see India as Viksit Bharat in the next 25 years.

An innovative and flexible policy framework has to be the sine qua non going forward. Forging a ‘Coalition of the Willing’ to deal with the six simultaneous transitions facing the Global South is critical. Its components would include—but not be limited to—urgently tackling the looming climate catastrophe; adapting frontier technologies including AI to our advantage; and ensuring our strategic autonomy to deal with the passing of Pax Americana and the inexorable Rise of China.

‘Everything All At Once: India and the Six Simultaneous Global Transitions’ is essential reading for anyone drawn to the future that’s quietly stepping into the present.

The authors are highly suitable to take up this subject. Rajiv Kumar, a highly regarded economist, served as vice chairman of NITI Aayog (2017-2022), while Ishan Joshi’s research interests include geostrategy, communication and media policy, and foreign affairs.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

A Global Calamity in the Making

The emphasis of the IMF on the world needing to cut emissions by 25–50 per cent by 2030 compared to pre-2019 levels, to contain temperature rises to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius, must be non-negotiable. It is worth noting that even today rich countries are responsible for 82 per cent of total global emissions.

Carbon reduction and temperature control must be universally seen as a global public good. Up to 18 per cent of the world’s GDP could be wiped off by 2050 if global temperatures rise by 3.2°C, as will happen if present trends continue. It will be apocalypse soon.

But there is some visible respite from the impending apocalypse. A rising share of renewables in the primary energy mix by 2050 and a decline in the importance of fossil fuels have been forecast by BP in its Energy Outlook Report. The share of renewable energy (RE) could grow to between 35 per cent and 60 per cent by 2050, from a mere 10 per cent in 2019. In the renewable energy mix, solar and wind power will expand rapidly and low-carbon hydrogen is also expected to play a critical role. Then there’s nuclear energy. The share of fossil fuels is projected to slump to less than 50 per cent by 2050 from around 80 per cent in 2019.

Although the pace at which renewable energy will penetrate the global energy system is expected to be quicker than any previous fuel in history, the question surely is whether this is enough to stave off a major climatic disaster especially for the Global South.

Nevertheless, such a scenario coming to fruition could upend current geopolitical alliances and energy security initiatives of major powers, and bring new actors into play. Recent geopolitical events such as the Russia-Ukraine war have showed how even relatively small disruptions to global energy supplies can lead to severe economic and social costs, making the strongest case for an ‘orderly transition’ away from hydrocarbons as nations pursue energy security by investing in renewables.

The good news is the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook (WEO) 2022 Report notes that we are at a historic turning point towards a cleaner energy system thanks to the unprecedented response across the world. This includes the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 in the US, the Fit for 55 package and REPowerEU Plan in the European Union (EU), South Korea’s efforts to increase the share of nuclear and renewables in its energy mix, and ambitious clean energy targets in China and India. Japan’s Green Transformation (Gulf War) programme, too, has adopted stepped-up commitments that include a comprehensive vision of economic and energy security that views the current competition over green technology in the Indo-Pacific as crucial for future economic competitiveness.

The contrarian view holds that while rapid growth in renewable energy such as wind and solar will contribute to a more diversified global energy mix, fossil fuels like oil, natural gas and coal will continue to be the largest contributors, still providing 75 per cent of global energy demand in 2040.

This view is clearly not a tenable global energy outlook. It will result in an unacceptable rise in global temperatures. This Trumpian view of the world is a nihilistic, self-fulfilling prophecy which leads to a doomsday scenario.

There is insufficient recognition that we are faced with an imminent closing of the climate change window. Experts tell us that this window is a maximum of twenty years long, after which we will likely reach the point of no return. Mere mitigation and adaptation efforts will clearly no longer suffice. This, even if there is agreement on the measures to be adopted and mobilization of sufficient financial resources to implement them. Eliminating carbon emissions and working on removing carbon already in the environment has therefore acquired criticality in the transition to a green future.

Unfortunately, as COP28 in Dubai showed, such an agreementis nowhere in sight. In fact, the principal objective for COP 29, held in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November 2024, was to finalize plans for mobilizing necessary climate financing. That clearly did not happen.

The required volume of climate financing is estimated to be 10X of the amount ($100 billion per year) currently committed by COP participants. We are told that a miniscule $25 billion has so far been actually mobilized. No advanced economy has fulfilled its commitment thus far, and the Baku conference—held in the shadow of Trump’s re-election as US President with a thumping majority—turned out to be a huge disappointment. A paltry $300 billion per year was ‘committed to in principle’ by wealthy nations in Baku.

[The excerpt reproduced with the permission of the publishers.]