India Doesn’t Plan to Boost Climate Goals After COP29 Finance Outcome #IndiaFinance

(Bloomberg) — India is unlikely to raise its targets for combating carbon emissions after developed nations failed to meet its demands for more financial aid at last year’s COP29 climate summit, according to people familiar with the situation.

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The government doesn’t plan to submit an updated version of its climate targets — known as Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement — for several more months as the document is still in the works, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing confidential talks. Today is the official deadline for countries to submit their NDCs to the United Nations.

At the COP29 summit in Baku, rich nations agreed to triple the amount of funding available for developing nations to transition to green energy and adapt to a warmer planet to $300 billion a year through 2035. Indian negotiator Chandni Raina’s outrage at the sum, which she called “paltry” and “not something that will enable conducive climate action,” went viral for encapsulating the unhappiness many poor, climate-vulnerable nations had with the meeting’s outcome. Experts say trillions will be needed to help developing nations cope with global warming.

In its updated NDC, India will focus on measures to adapt to more extreme weather and building resilience, the people said. A spokesperson for the ministry of environment did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

India, the world’s third largest polluter after China and the US, is betting on future clean energy to help meet the needs of a growing and increasingly wealthy population. But the nation still relies mainly on fossil fuels, with renewables accounting for only about 2% of its total energy mix.

Its current pledge under the Paris Agreement involves reducing emission intensity — the amount of carbon generated per unit of gross domestic product — by 45% by 2030 compared with 2005 levels. Over the same period, India aims to generate half of its power needs from non-fossil fuel sources and plant trees that are able to capture the equivalent of up to 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide. That’s well below the 68% reduction analysts at Climate Action Tracker say is needed over the period to maintain a pathway to 1.5C degrees of warming.

India plans to become carbon-neutral by 2070, a later date than other major emitters. Since announcing the goal in 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it clear that reaching it was conditional on the availability of international finance, with a report calculating that the transition would require $12.4 trillion in foreign investments.

–With assistance from Aaron Clark.

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