India, Oct. 27 -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi once made a remark that revealed more about his attitude towards climate change than perhaps he intended. He said that people were feeling colder with each passing winter, not because the temperature was dropping, but because they were ageing, and their ability to withstand cold was diminishing.

The statement, though couched in ignorance, betrayed a dangerous denial - the belief that climate change is not a real crisis but a Western fad, "more Utopian than utilitarian," to borrow his own dismissive tone.

On the night of Diwali in Delhi this year, I found myself momentarily wondering whether the Prime Minister's theory about ageing and sensitivity had a grain of truth. My capacity to endure ...