Headlines about India’s pressing security challenges often focus on tensions with Pakistan, border friction with China, and internal interethnic violence. However, the threat of climate change is in fact the paramount security threat to India in the coming decades.

Many hoped that the UN climate conference (COP26) held last month in Glasgow would advance efforts to face that threat, but COP26 failed to address crucial questions about the viability of India’s decarbonization and adaptation efforts.

There is an opportunity, however, for effective climate responses to be considered through the partnership model increasingly used when discussing India’s traditional military-security challenges—the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, often referred to as “the Quad.” At the next meeting of the Quad—just announced to be hosted by Japan, likely in-person next spring—the United States, Japan, and Australia should be prepared to discuss an approach that integrates considerations of climate change’s impacts on India and coordinates responses across other regional security challenges.

Climate change will worsen poverty and political instability for India’s growing population

Climate change is already taking a toll on human security in India, and is projected to worsen considerably. The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change’s 2021 report predicts that annual mean temperatures in India will increase by 2°C in best-case scenarios, and up to 5°C in high-emission scenarios. Heatwaves may last up to 25 times longer by the 2060s, with extreme temperatures leading to 750,000 additional deaths annually. Precipitation is projected to plummet, reducing water flow in the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra rivers by between 8 and 20 percent. The increase in water scarcity will threaten food supplies for up to three hundred million people in the three river basins. At the same time, increasingly severe monsoons and glacial melt is expected to cause catastrophic flooding and landslides. Disasters like the February flash floods in Uttarakhand, which killed scores of people after heavy rains and a glacial break, will become more frequent and more deadly.

India’s demographic profile exacerbates the challenges of combatting climate change. In contrast to other large, high-emitting countries like the United States, China, and Japan, India’s population is disproportionately impoverished, largely rural, and growing rapidly. Projections anticipate that India will become the world’s most populous country in 2027 and will account for the largest share of world population growth through 2050. By 2060, India’s population is projected to exceed 1.65 billion, over 300 million people more than China.

India’s continued population growth, though slowing, exacerbates its climate challenges in multiple ways. Because its population is growing, India must increase total consumption in the medium term or face increased poverty. While many activists in the developed world promote global consumption reduction, India’s high rate of poverty and comparatively low level of economic development make consumption reduction an incredibly tough pill to swallow. The Modi government has consistently placed economic development and reform at the forefront of its agenda, even at the expense of progress on climate change. Just days before Prime Minister Modi landed in Glasgow for COP26, for example, Union Coal Minister Joshi pushed for the clearance of fourteen new coal mining sites, some in biodiverse forests. Coal fulfills 70 percent of Indian energy demand, and states like Jharkand rely on coal revenues; realistic assessments recognize that time and economically-viable alternatives are necessary before a full coal phase-out.

Resource constraints—such as water scarcity and agricultural shortages—will hit India especially hard. The growing population will generate ever-increasing demand in already strained sectors at the same time that the country faces higher levels of internal displacement. As a result, the very approaches necessary for mitigating climate change may prove out of reach as the government struggles to provide access to basic resources. For example, as many countries look to reduce their dependence on unsustainable, energy-intensive groundwater mining, growing water scarcity and reduced agricultural output are putting up roadblocks to ending the practice in India.

65 percent of Indians live in rural areas. Of those, 25.7 percent live in poverty. Rural and poor people are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In addition, the public sector in rural, poor communities typically lacks the capacity to respond to extreme weather events and other climate shocks: 96 percent of disaster-related deaths across the globe occur in economically underdeveloped areas.

The vulnerability of India’s rural poor is compounded by another demographic repercussion of climate change: large-scale displacement. Weather events like monsoons and floods will play a big part in climate-induced migration, but the slow, steady deterioration of rural environments also will contribute to displacement. A 2021 survey of Indian households found that 70 percent of migrants considered drought or irregular rainfall to be a significant stressor. The Wilson Center’s Michael Kugelman has shown that growing water and soil-related challenges are spelling disaster for rural farmers, leading to migration and concerning increases in suicide rates. Moreover, Kugelman connects climate-induced migration to instability: introducing migrants to already tenuous local and regional security environments might be a recipe for worsening mass unrest, communal violence, and terrorism. At the very least, migrants will mostly pour into India’s cities, accelerating urbanization that outpaces the ability of local governments to respond, destabilizing economic and social balances. 

India will suffer harsh economic consequences from these devastating climate effects. A report by the Overseas Development Institute notes that the GDP of Indian districts with the lowest temperature increases has grown by 56 percent more than the GDP in those districts with the highest temperature increases. Modeling suggests that India’s GDP will be reduced by at least 13.4 percent—and potentially by as much as 90 percent—by 2100 than it would be without the effects of climate change.

Integrate climate response into Quad cooperation for better security outcomes

India cannot prevail over these numerous obstacles by itself, nor should it if the world’s richer countries are serious about addressing climate change. At COP26, Modi joined other leaders of developing countries in demanding $1 trillion to make green transitions economically possible across the developing world.

The Quad is well-positioned to assist India in this pressing security threat and there are promising signs. At the first meetings of the new Quad grouping, climate challenges were a featured topic. After the first in-person meeting of the Quad in September 2021 in Washington, the joint statement of Quad leaders set out a three-tiered approach to climate issues under the themes of climate ambition, clean-energy innovation and deployment, and climate adaptation, resilience, and preparedness. The joint statement also noted the need to consider “national circumstances” in the aim of achieving global net-zero emissions “preferably” by 2050—a nod to India’s unique circumstances within the Quad.

Climate-related security cooperation should move from long-term aims to concrete action items at the next summit meeting in Japan. The United States and Japan in particular have the financial resources and technological know-how that the Indian government requires, and Australia has experience with managing continental-sized climate challenges. Each country has strong geopolitical incentives to increase cooperation with India and—in turn—strengthen India.

Australia, Japan, and the United States each seek to deepen security cooperation among like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific, especially with India and in part through institutions like the Quad. Helping India with its climate challenges may improve Indian public perception of Quad countries more broadly, incentivizing deeper levels of cooperation in other areas, including other security priorities of the Quad. At a minimum, reducing the effects of climate change in India will reduce stresses on the Indian government, freeing up resources and attention for the regional and global security challenges at the forefront of Quad leaders’ minds. Such coordinated action serves the dual purposes of protecting human security in India and regional security in the Indo-Pacific.