Changing climate discourse and politics in India. Climate change as challenge and opportunity for diplomacy and development

- Three general climate discourses can be identified in Indian climate politics.
- Increasingly Indian climate politics is reflecting a liberal Win-Win discourse.
- In Indian foreign climate policy a traditional Third World discourse dominates.
- Radical civil society actors are marginalised in climate policy-making in India.
- Discourse theory is useful for research on change in climate policy.

This article contributes to the study of changing climate discourse and policy in emerging powers through a case study of climate discourse in India since 2007. Based on interviews with key actors in Indian climate politics and textual analysis, three general climate discourses - the Third World, Win-Win and Radical Green discourses - are identified. The discourses are characterised by different constructions of India's identity, interests, climate change exposure and climate policy orientation. At the most general level, the article finds that there has been a general discursive shift from the Third World discourse to the Win-Win discourse, and that the latter discourse is in broad agreement with the dominant international climate change discourse of ecological modernisation and thus supports an alignment between Indian and international climate politics. We also find, however, that India's domestic climate politics is marked by co-existence and tensions between the three climate discourses, producing a complex and at times contentious discursive politics over climate change, identity and development. The case study presented in this article moreover demonstrates how national interests are socially constructed and how changes in policy reflect changes in the dominant discourse.