PM Modi unlikely to attend COP30; India to be represented by envoy.
Bhupender Yadav to lead India’s delegation during second week of talks.
India to stress trust-building through predictable, grant-based climate finance pledges.
India will be represented by its ambassador to Brazil at the COP30 Leaders' Summit in Belém on November 6 and 7, while Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav will be leading the country’s delegation during the second week of the UN climate conference.
Yadav skipped COP29 in Baku where India strongly opposed the $300bn climate finance goal as inadequate.
Sources told PTI that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to skip COP30, which will be held from November 10-21.
More than 140 delegations, including 57 heads of state and 39 ministers are expected to attend the leaders' summit hosted by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
The two-day event will set the political direction for COP30 that will focus on forests, renewable energy, adaptation, food security and climate finance. The event marks a decade since the Paris Agreement.
According to Down To Earth, the COP30 Leaders’ Summit in Belém, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on November 6 called for a “fair, well-planned, and adequately financed transition” away from fossil fuels — warning that the world’s delay in acting on science could result in catastrophic consequences for both people and the planet.
Welcoming the new initiative, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell wrote on Linkedin, "creates long-term, predictable support for the countries and communities who protect them".
Underscoring the importance of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), a blended-climate fund to incentivise countries to prevent deforestation, he said that forests are important for our planet as they protect biodiversity, store carbon, regulate rainfall, sustain livelihoods and help keep the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal within reach.
He further added that every economy depends on forests and this finance mechanism matches financial initiatives with reality.
India’s Climate Priorities
India is expected to underline at COP30 that developed countries can restore trust by implementing their past commitments and scaling up predictable, grant-based funding for adaptation and loss and damage.
At last month's pre-COP meeting in Brasília, Yadav said COP30 must be the "COP of Adaptation" and that the focus should shift from dialogue to tangible action on the ground.
"Dialogue is important, but action is imperative. We must now focus on implementing ambitious climate measures and, above all, addressing the most pressing challenge: the urgent lack of resources for developing countries to deliver adaptation and mitigation," he said.
India has said that strengthening public finance for adaptation could encourage additional support from other sources and that new processes should not be introduced that risk weakening the Paris Agreement’s framework.
For India and the wider Global South, COP30 will be a test of whether the climate conferences can finally move beyond slow negotiations to deliver affordable, accessible funds.
(With inputs from PTI.)
