India unfolds priorities in Belem but yet to show its climate cards

2025 was among the 3 hottest years on record, accompanied by a record-breaking glacier loss, lowest Arctic sea ice on record and record increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from 2023-24

The 30th edition of the Conference of Parties (COP), the world’s biggest climate summit, kicked off on November 10 on the edge of the Amazon tropical rainforests in Brazil against the backdrop of violent typhoons striking Jamaica, Vietnam, and the Philippines, and pollutants sending Delhi’s air quality index beyond a life-threatening 400 level.

 

Two days into the summit in Belem, Brazil has tried to bring over 50,000 registered delegates from 194 countries under a common platform to push developed nations to act on climate-finance pledges made at previous Conferences of Parties (COPs) and create a fund for tropical deforestation.

 

Brazil’s focus here is less on framing new climate policies but more on finding funds for nations struggling to adapt to climate change. It will create programmes to compensate countries for loss and damage, climate experts said. Both issues lie close to India’s interests.

 

Transparency on adaptation finance by developed nations and the provision for additional funds to adjust to climate catastrophes are India’s key priorities for negotiation in Belem while opposing measures for additional reporting for adaptation progress, according to a submission to the United Nations (UN). 

 

India is ninth among the 10 nations most affected by extreme weather events, according to the Climate Risk Index 2026 report by Germanwatch. That makes it imperative for India to get a fair share of funds for adaptation, said Vishwas Chitale, fellow at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, on Zoom from Belem. There were nearly 430 such events in India over three decades ended 2024, causing economic losses of $170 billion, more than 80,000 fatalities and affecting 1.3 billion people, the report said.

 

The year 2025 is among the three hottest years on record, accompanied by a record-breaking glacier loss, lowest Arctic sea ice, and a record increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from 2023-24, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

 

Developing countries and island-nations need at least $300 billion annually for adaptation, 12 times the $26 billion available in the form of public-adaptation finance flows, Chitale said.

 

But for India to strike a good bargain it needs to make important submissions to the UN Climate Change office — primarily a new Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) or climate pledge, and a National Adaptation Plan (NAP) — to press its case for funds.

 

India, the biggest polluter after China and the United States and whose previous NDC update in August 2022 was a terse four-page document announcing targets until 2030, is yet to submit a new climate pledge, detailing climate plans until 2035. It may submit its first NAP during the summit, Chitale said.

 

“Despite a surge in renewables capacity, a thriving EV business and a snazzy COP30 pavilion, there’s silence on India’s 2035 climate target,’’ Ed King, a climate expert and COP veteran, said in a note. “When will India show up?”

 

Showing up is important to access new funds. Three years after the “Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage” (FRLD) was launched at COP27 in Egypt, developing countries affected by extreme weather events were for the first time asked to submit proposals at COP 30, backed by $250 million in funds to address damaged infrastructure or displaced communities.

 

Countries may submit proposals starting mid-December through to mid-June, with funding approvals beginning in July next year. The available funds are a pittance compared to the estimate of the UN Environment Programme that developing countries need — as much as $365 billion a year — to adapt. Of that only $26 billion a year is currently being provided.

 

Developed countries have pledged only $788 million and transferred less than $400 million of that total, industry newsletter Climate Home News has said.

 

Delayed NDCs

 

India is the only major polluter yet to produce a new NDC after Mexico and Korea’s NDCs were the latest to arrive this week. The NDCs will inform the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) about climate-mitigation targets until 2035 and clear commitments on finance and fossil fuel phaseout have been underwhelming, according to a UN report. But countries are including adaptation, and loss & damage in their new NDCs, which earlier was limited to climate mitigation.

 

Parties are required to communicate NDCs every five years and those communicated are to be recorded in the UN registry. COP21 had decided that parties would submit NDCs to the secretariat nine-12 months in advance but countries inevitably delay, the UN data shows. India’s previous NDC — in August 2022 — came two years late.

 

Based on the total of 86 NDCs submitted by 113 parties, global greenhouse gas emission in 2035 is projected to be only 12 per cent below 2019 levels, according to the UN’s 2025 NDC Synthesis Report. This is against a projected emission increase of 20-48 per cent for 2035, before the adoption of the Paris Agreement, a legally binding climate treaty, in 2015. But critics called the new climate pledges tepid, with China, the world’s biggest polluter, pledging only 7-10 per cent emission reduction as against an expected 30 per cent.

 

China’s domination

 

With 56,118 delegates registered, COP30 is provisionally the second-largest COP ever, behind the 80,000-strong COP 28 in Dubai, according to the provisional registration data from the UNFCCC. The enthusiastic response to Belem has come despite concern over a shortage of beds and sky-high accommodation costs, forcing Brazil to accommodate poorer nations in cruise ships free of cost.

 

China, with 789 delegates, is sending the biggest delegation after Brazil, with Indonesia and Nigeria in third and fourth positions. India is in 66th position with 87 delegates.

 

The US, which for the first time in the history of the COP did not send a team, joined Afghanistan, Myanmar, and San Marino as the only countries not registering a delegation.

 

“We see the familiar story of wealthy Global North countries falling far short of delivering their fair share of emission reduction and international climate finance, even as they gaslight and blame larger Global South countries for the accelerating climate crisis,” said Hemantha Withanage, chair, Friends of the Earth International.  

India’s status

• Among 10 most affected nations from extreme weather events
• Yet to submit a new climate pledge, detailing climate plans until 2035

Key priority areas for negotiations

• Transparency on adaptation finance by developed nations
• Provision of additional funds to adjust to climate catastrophes