Looking beyond Durban: Where to from here?

The lesson for India after Durban is that it needs to formulate an approach that combines attention to industrialised countries' historical responsibility for the problem with an embrace of its own responsibility to explore low carbon development trajectories. This is both ethically defensible and strategically wise. Ironically, India's own domestic national approach of actively exploring "co-benefits" - policies that promote development while also yielding climate gains - suggests that it does take climate science seriously and has embraced responsibility as duty. However, by focusing on articulating rigid principles rather than building on actual policies and actions, it only weakens its own position.