Last December, at the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the United States and other wealthy nations pledged increased aid to developing countries to help tackle environmental issues in the developing world. The wealthier nations collectively agreed to raise $30 billion between 2010 and 2012 in support of developing nations, which are at the greatest risk of flooding, drought, disease outbreaks, and other catastrophes caused by climate change. They further pledged to raise $100 billion by 2020 and to establish the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund to help such nations adapt to climate challenges through measures such as building dikes and helping farmers plant different crops to adjust to changing season patterns. Perhaps more importantly, the climate fund money will also be used to mitigate or curb the growth in greenhouse gas emissions. Since the conference, the Obama administration has made plans to “fast-track” the fulfillment of its financial obligations as determined in Copenhagen by requesting $1.9 billion in international climate funds from Congress.

While the Copenhagen conference produced clear answers as to how much member nations are expected to donate in climate aid, it did not make explicit precisely which nations would be benefitting from the aid. As the wealthier nations begin to determine where aid will be distributed, it is clear that it is in the United States’ interest to direct climate change mitigation aid towards India.

In the past, environmental aid has been directed toward major emerging nations – namely, China, India and Brazil – in large part because these nations have enough political and economic clout to demand the attention of donors in the developed world.  These nations also possess the infrastructure necessary to navigate the complex application process required to access aid. The global aid group Oxfam found that over the past ten years, one-third of the international money aimed at climate programs went to these three nations, while the world’s poorest 49 countries received just one-eighth. Moreover, even among these three emerging economies aid is not distributed equally:  the majority of the money from the United Nations’ Clean Development Mechanism, for example, goes to projects in China.

To effectively reduce future greenhouse gas emissions, mitigation aid from developed countries like the United States must continue to flow to major developing nations like China, India, and Brazil, rather than to the world’s poorest countries. The emerging economic giants have seen the greatest rise in emissions over the past 20 years. Since they are large, industrializing nations, their future emissions will have a greater effect on global warming than the undersized emissions from poorer countries.

But why does the United States favor China over India and Brazil in terms of environmental aid?  The United States should direct more of its aid towards environmental projects in India. If invested in India, this aid will not only produce global environmental benefits but also further the United States’ strategic interests. Although investing in renewable energy in China will have roughly the same global, climactic effect as investing in Indian energy projects, investment in India is strategically better for the U.S. Over the past ten years, China has become an economic powerhouse, a fact that has greatly increased its political clout. China’s economic superiority and continued growth gives it more leisure to pursue its foreign policy initiatives.  This has led to an asymmetry.

It is in the interest of the United States that India, a democratic ally, keep pace with China, a Communist dictatorship pursuing an aggressive foreign policy. As a populous Asian nation with a well-educated upper middle class, India serves as a counterweight to China’s increasing dominance in the region. Unlike China, India has vibrant and open political debate and is rarely criticized for its human rights record. Investment in India will strengthen the allegiance between the U.S. and this important regional ally.

India is also strategically located. Sharing a border with Pakistan, India is a gateway to the Middle East, and has cooperated with the U.S. in the past on counterterrorism efforts.  During his November visit to India, President Obama went as far as to endorse India’s bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council, hoping to elevate the nation of over a billion people to “its rightful place in the world.” But Obama also reaffirmed the importance of Indian cooperation in counterterrorism efforts, and the two nations agreed to launch new joint projects in Africa and Afghanistan.

While U.S.-Indian relations are already friendly, further U.S. investment in the nation will serve to bolster existing ties. Strategic investment in Indian green technology will not only mitigate global CO2 emissions, but such investment will also enrich Indian development efforts.  India is desperately poor: an astonishing 400 million Indians do not have regular access to electricity. According to the CIA World Factbook, 25 percent of Indians live below their poverty line while the same is true of only 3 percent of Chinese. China no longer needs aid, while India still does.  The donation of such aid would not only stimulate the Indian economy and counter Chinese economic dominance, but also set India on a path toward lower carbon emissions.

Despite high initial investment costs, renewable energy can be profitable. Carbon-emitting technologies are not sustainable, since fossil fuel resources will eventually run out. Renewable sources of energy are starting to play an increasingly important role in global energy markets. Future demand for renewable power must grow as our collective non-renewable sources become further depleted. Even oil-rich nations like the United Arab Emirates have come to this realization and have started to invest in green technology: the nation’s capital, Abu Dhabi, is revamping its infrastructure to become a “zero carbon” city.  In 2009, researchers at Trent University published a paper in the International Journal of Applied Econometrics and Quantitative Studies showing that higher economic development is associated with more environmental aid.  If we want to stimulate the Indian economy, investments in green projects in India are the way to go.

At present, China dominates the production of components necessary for the construction of renewable energy facilities. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Chinese manufacturers, who have the ability to price their products as much as 20 percent cheaper than their European counterparts, have taken over more than 43 percent of the global solar panel market in the last six years.  Stimulating India’s economy through green investments would temper China’s ascendancy in this area and decrease the United States’ reliance on one nation — China — for its renewable energy needs.

If the United States manages to direct climate aid towards India, it will strengthen ties with a rising world power that will help bolster the economic interests of all involved.

President Obama’s recent state dinner with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the first such dinner of his Presidency, attracted significant international attention. Beneath the façade of pomp and grandeur, the President’s choice to host Indian leaders at such a momentous occasion is an important symbol of his commitment to strong bilateral ties between the world’s two largest democracies. Obama, however, has yet to fully harness the potential of this relationship—one that sags under the weight of numerous concerns including the global press’ preoccupation with a rising China. Although China grabs headlines as the rising power in Asia, India too is quickly becoming a regional power—one from which the U.S. can benefit. The U.S. can cooperate with India on a variety of fronts: including nuclear non-proliferation, extremist violence in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, and the maintenance of a stable balance of power in Asia. If President Obama wishes to truly strengthen the U.S.’s partnership with India, he must go beyond mere symbolism and focus on forwarding the U.S. and India’s shared goals.

In some sense, the state dinner was nothing new; past U.S. presidents have regularly hosted Indian leaders at state dinners. Indeed, in terms of policy substance, the Obama-Singh event is less important than Singh’s dinner with former President Bush in 2005, when they announced a civilian nuclear agreement between the two states. Nevertheless, the state dinner helped allay fears that the Obama administration might deprioritize relations with India in favor of strengthening ties with China. Despite the administration’s globetrotting agendas, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bypassed India on her trip to Asia in February 2009, and Obama, too, declined to visit during his Asian tour en route to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Singapore in November. Although Clinton did visit India earlier in July, the Obama administration seems to interact with India within a more bilateral framework than one in which they acknowledge its rising power and aspirations on the global stage.

New Delhi has been fretting over the U.S.’s apparent acquiescence to growing Chinese clout and in particular, the recent joint Obama-Hu statement calling for closer “cooperation [between the U.S. and China] on issues related to South Asia.” The statement seemed to open the door to China’s involvement in the longstanding sensitive rivalry between India and Pakistan. Furthermore, the ongoing economic downturn has fueled protectionist tendencies in America, especially with a Democrat-controlled Congress. Obama recently spoke of anti-outsourcing measures and criticized current tax policies which favor companies outsourcing to lower-cost countries like India. Hence some political watchers are predicting some strain in U.S.-India relations on Obama’s watch.

Officials such as U.S. Under Secretary of State William Burns and Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake have nonetheless firmly reiterated America’s commitment to a partnership with India. Prime Minister Singh’s status as the first state guest of honor can be seen as a reaffirmation of the continued strength of U.S.-India ties and a strategic move by the White House to reassure their nervous Indian friends. The pageantry of a state dinner cannot, however, be a replacement for progress toward substantive issues. The Obama administration has been dragging its heels in the implementation of the much-heralded nuclear cooperation agreement, with the President showing little inclination to push through the final modalities and procedures.

Obama is right to engage more closely with China, but sticking too closely to a G2-style “Chimerica” script would risk overemphasizing Chinese influence at the expense of American leverage. China and America are more often than not at loggerheads with each other, from China’s resentment over its past subjugation under Western imperial powers to present-day tensions over Taiwan, Tibet, yuan undervaluation, and ideological differences over human rights and democracy. If Obama realistically wants to realize his grand visions of multilateralism and global cooperation, he needs as many allies on board as possible. An increasingly aggressive and confident China is an unlikely first candidate.

India can serve as a useful counterweight to China’s assertive and occasionally hostile presence in Asia that ensures that the much-touted ‘Asian century’ does not belong exclusively to the Chinese. While it would be overly simplistic to claim that India and the U.S.’s shared traits of being populous multiethnic democracies automatically renders easy cooperation, the fact that India is more likely to have a similar outlook as the U.S. can ease Western fears of a potentially unfriendly Asia-Pacific region based on Chinese-driven values and models. The U.S. should not try to forcefully impose American ideas on Asia, but with India as an ally the U.S. can ensure that its interests in Asia are not compromised. Most of the Southeast Asian countries, being poor and relatively small, are highly susceptible to China’s “checkbook diplomacy”—using its wealth to buy allies. For the U.S., India’s partnership may be more important than its partnership with Japan, as that country, a traditionally staunch U.S. ally, becomes increasingly distant from the U.S. after the recent shift in power to the Democratic Party of Japan under Yukio Hatoyama. India is also keen to work with the U.S. as protection against China. Supporting India’s emergence as a major power need not constitute an antagonistic containment strategy directed against any supposed “China threat.” Instead, it is a reasonable policy designed to ensure that the interests of all players are accommodated to preserve geopolitical stability and inclusiveness in a crucial region of the world.

The U.S. has to make sure it recognizes India’s interests while balancing its own agenda. Unfortunately, relations have been soured by India’s frustrations with America’s perceived reluctance to strongly crack down on Pakistan, which harbors several extremist groups that have targeted India. India is suspicious of ramped-up American military assistance to its neighbor, fearing that Pakistan will channel those resources toward aggression in the disputed Kashmir region and along the Indo-Pakistan border, rather than toward combating Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Obama also flamed controversy early in 2009 when he suggested that resolving the Kashmir dispute would be central to addressing the problems of instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan. South Asian politics have long proven to be complex and messy, and tensions have become even more strained in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai bombings by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT). Washington needs to balance its interests in working with both India and Pakistan, as well as Afghanistan, all crucial fronts in the battle against terrorism. During the state dinner, Obama wisely adopted a policy of non-involvement, issuing a neutral statement that “it is not [America’s] place” to get involved in the India-Pakistan conflict. Pakistan and India are partners that the U.S. can ill afford to lose; Washington should tread carefully.

Although the two nations have been increasingly close partners, there remains much potential for closer cooperation on counterterrorism efforts, particularly in the realms of intelligence sharing, joint training, improved institutional frameworks, and enhanced security enforcement measures and responses. India’s previous successful efforts against Sikh terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s were due in no small part to the sharing of intelligence with the U.S. and other countries, and a similar approach may be adopted with regard to global terrorism today. While terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) do have different objectives, they all cause conflict beyond Pakistan’s borders. A U.S.-India partnership in combating terrorism would underline India’s leadership both regionally and globally and would highlight international commitment to stopping terrorism and increasing stability.

Although President Obama’s ceremony and symbolic gestures are well-intentioned, building a stronger partnership with India will require further action. While China must be considered, the U.S. must engage more deeply with India on the many issues and interests that the two nations share to glean the potential economic and strategic rewards.