Climate change caused by greenhouse-gas emissions has become the greatest threat to Planet Earth. The impact of relentlessly rising temperatures is already apparent in frequent extreme weather events, people’s displacement and economic devastation. The North’s industrialised countries are primarily responsible for causing climate change, but its harshest effects are manifest in the developing South. The world’s leadership has persistently failed to negotiate a fair, ambitious and binding agreement to cap and drastically reduce emissions, which redresses such injustices, before dangerous warming thresholds are crossed. The Northern countries, and increasingly the South’s emerging economies including India, are shirking their climate responsibility. India pays lip-service to fighting climate change, but follows elitist policies that promote luxury consumption and raise emissions. This must change through a grassroots-up participatory process which radically revises India’s global negotiations stance and the National Action Plan on Climate Change towards greater environmental effectiveness, and global and domestic equity.