After co-chairing the  ‘Summit for Action on Artificial Intelligence’,  India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will head for the USA at the invitation of  his "dear friend" President Donald Trump . They would engage in a  dialogue that would undoubtedly need more of human intelligence than an artificial one!

It would be a colossal waste of opportunity if Modi’s talks with Trump remain confined to tariff, trade, immigration, military purchases and other bilateral issues. Modi, after his G-20 leadership and BRICS stewardship, has emerged as a leader with a much larger role to play at the global level, particularly when the climate crisis has become the existential threat for humanity. The Modi moment is now about deploying his "hug diplomacy" to reset the climate agenda in the wake of Trump’s open threat of abandoning  the Paris Climate Agreement.

Modi, third-time prime minister of the largest democracy in the world, is certainly in a position to deploy his ‘hug-diplomacy’. It has the potential to cool down global concerns and threats that are looming from climate-unfriendly pronouncements emanating from the White House in less than a month into Trump’s second term.

As he travels across the Atlantic from Paris to Washington DC, Modi has to quickly switch over from cloudy subjects of emerging ethics risk to direct energy needs of AI. He has to take a deep dive into human  intelligence (HI) characterised by consciousness and  consciences that can never be equated with AI. He has the responsibility as the "world’s most popular leader" as of January 2025 , to understand the world’s fifth most popular leader, President Trump,  with empathy and compassion and not based on media’s 

Yes, Trump has called climate change a hoax. Yes, he won the US election based on the "drill-baby-drill" slogan. Yes, he has started deporting illegal immigrants and began tariff wars.  But it is downright foolish to assume that he believes in making  America great again when the  American business, including those owned by the likes of Elon, Satya, Sundar, Jeff and Mark are surrounded by climate-induced wildfires. He as a shrewd businessman knows well that employment in the clean energy business is increasing more rapidly than in fossil fuel. He knows well that costs of clean energy like solar and wind are falling rapidly and "drill baby drill"  is now becoming more relevant for drilling the holes into  the revenues and profit. Trump Tower’s upper floors may not get submerged in floods but houses in his state of  Florida cannot escape the flooding  due to hurricanes. He certainly cannot sell military equipment to countries in Asia, Africa and Europe when their economies are devastated by climate disasters. Panama Canal, even if acquired by the US, cannot be operated when availability of freshwater that is needed to be pumped in the canal to leverage the movement of ships becomes scarce due to climate change!  And he knows that the era of winning the technology race only with rich resources has been left far behind in the wake of the  ‘DeepSeek-China moment’. 

The world has not forgotten the images of Modi with Trump in massive sport-stadium shows, both in the US and in India, that depicted nothing but bonhomie between the two. 

What Modi can do

While Trump promotes oil with open slogans, many developing countries including India continue to use coal and justify coal-based power-plants to gain more time for clean energy to become viable. So none of these acts of Trump can be countered. But Modi can do disruptive diplomacy by forming an alliance with Trump that would benefit the planet without attempting to  thwart Trump’s attempts to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. What can Modi do?

First, Modi can invoke Trump’s rhetoric to highlight business and economic opportunities along with market mechanisms that are available almost on a platter while pursuing a non-fossil fuel future.  Particularly,  Modi could showcase employment generation by promoting solar energy through the International Solar Alliance. He and Trump can strike bilateral and multilateral ventures as well as research programmes with BRICS on solar energy, modular nuclear plants, windmills, biofuels and green, grey and blue hydrogen.

Second, Modi and Trump can propose an alliance to mitigate threats to national security arising out of natural disasters (without calling climate change a source for these  disasters).

Third, knowing that a country can still take part in negotiations even if it is not party to the climate agreement, Modi can propose to form an alliance of like-minded parties with the US to undertake emission reductions without referring to Nationally Determined Contribution ( NDCs) that arise out of business opportunities like carbon trading.

Fourth, they can form a forum of Indian and American tech giants to form the technology alliance for cutting-edge technologies like space reflectors for day and night solar energy, recycling of the highly-valued materials from  e-waste, nuclear fusion and thermonuclear reactors.

Fifth, he can propose partnerships of BRICS-USA  on hydrogen energy with joint ownership of technologies for production, storage, transport and use as well as establishing an international regime for clean, efficient and nature-based technologies without tying them with Paris climate goals. 

Sixth, they can propose to the G-20+ or even larger grouping immediately after annual UN climate meetings to cull out the beneficial decisions and take additional decisions that provide economic and social benefits while  reducing  national and international security risks. The social, health , biodiversity and  air-pollution related advantages of ‘Net Zero’ can be prioritized irrespective of the decisions in COPs of UNFCCC.

Can Modi make a difference?

The world witnessed during the first term of President Trump a comical scene between Trump and visiting French President Emmanuel Macron. The media dubbed it "dandruff diplomacy". Trump was seen to demonstratively brush dandruff off Macron's suit in front of photographers and reporters when Macron visited Washington DC where he openly expressed his disagreement with Trump on his stance on climate change.‘Dandruff diplomacy’ may have shown Trump's condescending appreciation of Macron's positive criticism -- and probably suggested a willingness to listen. Later, when Macron addressed the US Congress.Trump was taking the risk of allowing a foreign leader to openly disagree on the floor of the highest political chamber of his country. But that showed the selective open-minded dimension of Trump’s  diplomacy. 

Can now Modi make a difference to Trump's thinking through his now famous "hug diplomacy"?

(The author is a noted environmentalist, former Director UNEP, and Founder Director, Green TERRE Foundation, Pune, India. Views are personal. He can be reached at shende.rajendra@gmail.com)