No consensus on India's entry to NSG

BRICS on Sunday endorsed India’s key argument for admission into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, but stopped just short of supporting New Delhi’s bid for membership of the cartel.

The eighth summit of the five-nation bloc concluded here with the leaders recognising that nuclear energy would play “a significant role for some of the BRICS countries in meeting their 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement commitments and for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions in the long term”.

The reference to the significant role of nuclear energy in the Goa Declaration, which was issued by the BRICS leaders at the end of the summit, was in line with argument put forward by New Delhi in support of its plea for India’s membership in the NSG. India of late ratified 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement.

India’s “intended nationally determined contribution” to global effort to mitigate climate change would require it to generate 40% power without using fossil fuel by 2030. The Modi government has a target to raise installed capacity for nuclear power generation from 5780 MWe to 63 GWe by 2032.

New Delhi has been arguing that India’s membership of the NSG would enable it to take part in the process to frame rules for international nuclear trade and would thus provide for “a predictable global environment”, which would help it implement its plan to substantially raise atomic power generation.

The BRICS leaders’ Goa Declaration, too, on Sunday underlined “the importance of predictability in accessing technology and finance for expansion of civil nuclear energy capacity which would contribute to the sustainable development” of the members of the bloc.

It, however, did not directly support India’s bid for membership of the NSG. China has been opposing India’s bid for membership of the NSG.

A meeting between the top diplomats of the two countries in New Delhi last month had failed to make any breakthrough. China maintained its stand that the 48-nation cartel, which controls the global nuclear commerce, should admit India only when it opens its doors to Pakistan and other countries, which did not sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.