Understanding the Quad’s Climate Diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific Region

Abstract

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (popularly known as Quad) emphasizes building a free, open, inclusive, secure, stable and resilient Indo-Pacific region. For this, it adopts an action-oriented practical approach to provide holistic security for all types of vulnerabilities, risks and threats. The region is vulnerable to various climate change impacts, including sea-level rise, floods and droughts, heatwaves and typhoons or cyclones. To strengthen climate security, the Quad set up a Working Group on Climate Change and launched practical joint climate action, namely ‘The Quad Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Package’ (Q-CHAMP), which equally focuses on mitigation and adaptation/resilience aspects of climate action in the region. It also stressed making climate diplomatic efforts with other countries and regional organizations like ASEAN to set up mechanisms for joint climate action to address climate change effectively. Against this backdrop, this article aims to discuss joint climate initiatives taken by the Quad under its climate diplomacy to address climate change in the Indo-Pacific region. This study has also addressed a fundamental question: To what extent does climate diplomacy make the Quad an appropriate strategic platform that provides a suitable political environment for cooperation, negotiation and dialogue to address complex security issues in the post-Cold War era? This qualitative study has been completed based on a textual analysis of the data relating to the Quad’s joint climate action. The article argues that as a minilateral cooperative platform, the Quad’s joint climate action in the form of a Climate Working Group and the Q-CHAMP would be able to mitigate greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions and build the adaptive capability of communities to adapt to the various climate change impacts, as well as contribute to establishing a secure, stable and resilient region along with a noticeable contribution to meeting the objectives of the Paris Agreement at the global level.