So if a carbon tax won’t work because R&D capacity is low, where will India get its cleantech from? From the West, of course. But an India that’s part of an emissions reduction protocol will be differently helped from an India that isn’t. Suppose the country agrees to emission norms but says its precondition is getting special funding and special access to cleantech intellectual property, will the West disagree? No.

What else will India get? The chance to be at the high table and influencing policy as the second round of climate change talks begins. Remember, India’s negotiators are famously tough.

Agreeing to a protocol will also speed up domestic industry’s compliance record. More than half of India’s big industry doesn’t follow pollution norms, according to the World Bank. And these norms don’t even apply to the small and medium enterprises.

A globalised world doesn’t have a lot of time for such casualness. This year was the first time BSE’s top 100 companies filled up questionnaires on how they would respond to climate change. The Carbon Disclosure Project is a group of 284 global institutional investors who manage $41 trillion in assets. Its mandate is to investigate companies’ green commitment.

Multilateral and global private scrutiny of India’s official policy will increase if India continues to hide behind the poverty argument. It needs to come out of the closet. Take an emissionary position.