COP30 Concludes A Mixed Bag: India Wins Some But Little Headway On Finance
The global climate conference held in Brazil concluded on a lukewarm note with a bid to set up a finance work programme and triple adaptation funding after two weeks of disagreements
Mumbai: Yet another annual global climate conference ended with little to show as progress, with countries failing to even mention a phase-out of earth-warming fossil fuels in the final text. The Belém package, named after the Brazilian city where the conference was held, also did little to raise ambition on climate finance and adaptation goals while maintaining the need to keep the world from overshooting the 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature ceiling set by the Paris Agreement.
India’s pursuit of discouraging unilateral trade measures found mention in the final text. The European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism essentially functions like a tariff based on carbon emissions for goods, which will be implemented from January 2026, as IndiaSpend reported this week. India had repeatedly called on parties to uphold the principles of common but differentiated responsibilities, scale up adaptation finance and prevent trade protectionism.
“It will take nothing less than a global collective effort to increase climate finance to the levels articulated in the Baku to Belém Roadmap to $1.3 trillion,” Union minister Bhupender Yadav had said in Belem earlier in the week.
The conference also adopted to establish a two-year work programme on climate finance, including in the context of Article 9 of the Paris Agreement as a whole, something that India had pushed for. The Global Goal on Adaptation has called for efforts to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035. At the time of going to press, countries including Colombia had objected to various aspects of the conference process pertaining to the text on Global Goal on Adaptation and Mitigation Work Program. However, all the texts were gaveled later and it was decided that these countries could take up their concerns at a later conference.
The final text from Belém ended up with the COP President setting up two separate roadmaps, one on halting and reverting deforestation and another to transition away from fossil fuels. However, these did not find mention in the final text and are therefore, not binding.
“The goal of tripling adaptation finance remains vague with no specific accountability of contributors; the work programme on Article 9 could provide a critical space for developing countries to scrutinize finance flows, while new dialogues on trade measures can elevate the issue of unilateral measures like EU CBAM within the COP process,” said Avantika Goswami, programme manager at the Centre for Science and Environment in a press release. “Elsewhere the just transition mechanism is a win for civil society and developing countries. Beyond talk shops however, this COP has delivered little else.”
The stakes couldn’t be higher. During 1995-2020, a total of 1,058 climatic disaster events (floods, cyclones, droughts, cold waves and heat waves) were reported. These include 420 in the period 1995-2005, followed by 356 (2005-2015) and 282 (2015-2020) incidents, as IndiaSpend reported in September 2025. Floods accounted for 33% of India’s such incidents, followed by heat waves (24%), drought (22%), cold waves (16%), and cyclones (5%).
In 2024, India experienced extreme weather events on 322 of 366 days, surpassing the 318 days in 2023 and 314 days in 2022. This means that nearly 88% of the year saw extreme weather in one or more parts of the country, up from 87% in 2023 and 86% in 2022, highlighting a worsening trend.
Disagreements
From 1995 to 2024, more than 832,000 lives were lost and direct economic losses of nearly $4.5 trillion (inflation-adjusted) were recorded, driven by more than 9,700 extreme weather events, according to the Climate Risk Index.
India is one of the most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change, with the poor being the most at risk. India suffered an income loss of $159 billion, 5.4% of its gross domestic product, due to extreme heat conditions in 2021, according to a 2022 Climate Transparency Report that is compiled by an international partnership of 16 organisations.
It is estimated that climate change-induced loss and damage is projected to cost South Asia $518 billion by 2050, as IndiaSpend reported in October 2022. By the end of the century, this number could jump by three times, to $1,438 billion.
The world is on track to overshoot the upper ceiling of global warming of 1.5°C very likely in the next decade. In fact, full implementation of climate pledges known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) will take the world to a warming of 2.3-2.5°C, while those based on current policies are 2.8°C.
Every year, majority countries of the world gather at an annual climate conference known as Conference of Parties or COP. This year, the 30th COP was held in Brazil’s Amazonian heart, Belem. The very beginning of the conference was marked by parties arguing on what should go on the agenda. The conference was being held with the United States, one of the world’s biggest carbon emitters, pulling out of the COP process altogether under President Donald Trump.
The Brazilian Presidency tried to negotiate with the parties through a ‘mutirao’- Portuguese word for collective effort.
By Friday, countries could not agree on three elements.
1. A nationally determined roadmap on a fossil fuel phaseout
2. Article 9.1–a legal obligation requiring developed countries to provide financial resources to developing countries for climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. In simple terms, donating money to developing countries is not binding for developed countries at the moment.
3. A way to address the disproportionate impacts of unilateral trade measures on developing countries among others. These had divided the developing and developed country blocs. While the Like Minded Developing Countries which includes India and China said that they will not accept any prescriptive text on developing a fossil fuel phaseout roadmap, EU and other rich nations said they will not accept any further talks on article 9.1.
On November 11, India had issued a statement on behalf of the BASIC and LMDC blocs. It cautioned that unilateral climate-related trade measures risk becoming instruments of protectionism and undermine multilateral cooperation. India had recalled the historical and ongoing responsibility of developed nations. It was stressed that developed countries must not only reach net-zero earlier to preserve equitable carbon space, but invest more in negative emissions technologies and most importantly fulfil their obligations on finance, technology transfer and capacity-building to developing countries.
The final Mutirao text failed to mention a complete phase out of fossil fuels or a roadmap for the same. Developing countries like India and China had argued that developed countries should lead emissions cuts given their historical responsibility. On the other hand, an initiative by Colombia got support from more than 80 countries demanding a fossil fuel phaseout. In the end, the matter did not make it to the final text but next year, Colombia will be hosting a separate conference on fossil fuel phase out.
Burning coal has accounted for 0.3°C of the roughly 1°C rise since pre-industrial times, IndiaSpend reported in November 2021. Natural gas also emits methane which has global warming potential 25 times higher than that of carbon dioxide.
When the COP26 agreement at Glasgow included a coal 'phase out', India had opposed the wording, citing concerns for its energy security, as IndiaSpend reported earlier. It had insisted that the Glasgow pact call for a gradual 'phase down' of coal and not 'phase out'.
In July this year, five years ahead of target, India achieved a critical milestone: Its non-fossil-fuel energy capacity reached 50% of the country’s overall capacity. But these sources account for under a quarter of the country’s power generation, up five percentage points in a decade, we reported in September.
Over 21 million Indians depend on the fossil fuel economy for their livelihood, we had reported, emphasising the need for a focus on just transition, including economic restructuring, workforce reskilling, land repurposing, revenue substitution and responsible social practices.
Critical climate finance still out of reach
A key expectation for this year’s Climate Change Conference was to reach agreement on indicators for measuring progress towards the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) that was established in the Paris Agreement.
The 2025 Adaptation Gap Report estimates that developing countries will need between $310 and $365 billion annually by 2035, while current flows are only around $26 billion. On November 20, Yadav had expressed concern that the Glasgow Climate Pact goal of doubling public adaptation finance from 2019 levels to around $40 billion by 2025 is likely to be missed if the trend continues.
Developing countries require about $5.8-5.9 trillion up until 2030 in order to meet their climate goals and comply with what they promised as per the Paris Agreement, as IndiaSpend reported in October 2024.
The final text of the GGA adopted on Saturday called for efforts to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035.
“While the adaptation finance decision wasn't the tripling by 2030 developing countries wanted, it helps ensure that funding for adaptation will continue to grow as climate impacts increase,” said Joe Thwaites, International Climate Finance Director at NRDC in a press release. “Even though the deadline is a decade away, developed countries can't be complacent and must immediately get to work scaling up adaptation support. Having this goal within the framework of the NCQG [New Collective Quantified Goal on Finance] means that developed countries take the lead, with other countries encouraged to contribute voluntarily,” he said.
Research shows that 80% of climate finance is offered as high-interest loans, and not grants, adding to poorer countries' financial stress, as IndiaSpend reported in 2021. Most of the loans extended as climate finance carry no concessions and have ungenerous terms requiring higher repayments from poor countries, we had reported. Since developing countries have a higher risk assessment due to the probability of losses caused by disasters, political instability and so on, they end up paying higher interest on the loans extended as climate finance by rich countries.We welcome feedback. Please write to respond@indiaspend.org. We reserve the right to edit responses for language and grammar.
