COP30 keeps Global South priorities alive amid geopolitical challenges: Experts

Climate experts, including India's former negotiators, on Friday said the outcomes of COP30 in Belem delivered some important gains for developing countries, even as progress on fossil fuel transition and adaptation finance remained limited.

Speaking at a discussion here, former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said shifting from fossil fuels to clean energy is fundamental for climate action, but the commitment made at COP28 in Dubai did not find reflection in the Belem outcome.

He said India supports the transition, but the question of who pays for it remains unresolved.

''It is not a costless transition. It requires resources. When the Ukraine crisis triggered an energy crisis, many champions of climate action quickly went back to fossil fuels. We are facing those challenges in India as well,'' he said.

Saran said India faces ''immense pressure'' to cut emissions, even though the country has made strong progress on renewables and energy efficiency.

''India has very good stories to tell, but these get overshadowed by the focus on current emissions, which skews perceptions,'' he said.

Arunabha Ghosh, Special Envoy (South Asia) to COP30 and CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), said India should work towards hosting a COP focused on ''how'' solutions can be delivered rather than on ''what'' needs to be done.

He praised the Brazilian COP30 presidency for ''keeping the ship afloat'' at a time when other multilateral processes, including the global plastics treaty talks and discussions at the International Maritime Organization, ''completely collapsed under pressure from the US''.

Former Additional Secretary Ravi Shankar Prasad, who served as India's chief climate negotiator between 2013 and 2021, said expectations from COPs must remain realistic.

''These meetings are not meant to be revolutionary. Their success should be judged against what was on the table and what was delivered,'' he said.

Prasad said developing nations had sought a stronger outcome on adaptation finance, but ''we must realise that one of the largest climate finance donors has stepped back from actively engaging on climate change. That has affected the global appetite for helping other countries.'' At COP26 in Glasgow, developed countries agreed to double adaptation finance by 2025, broadly seen as a target of about USD 40 billion.

Ahead of COP30, least-developed countries, small-island states, the African Group and several Latin American nations pushed for tripling grant-based adaptation finance by 2030 to at least USD 120 billion.

But the final Belem text shifted the tripling deadline to 2035.

Prasad added that even after the world's biggest historical emitter announced its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC, ''all other countries stood together at COP30 and agreed on a large number of items''. The outcome, he said, was ''realistic and aligned with what was expected from the Brazilian presidency''.

A key positive for developing countries was the decision to create a two-year work programme on climate finance, covering Article 9 of the Paris Agreement, including Article 9.1, which obligates developed countries to provide financial support.

Ahead of the summit, the LMDCs and the Arab Group, including India, China and Saudi Arabia, had sought a three-year programme focused specifically on implementing Article 9.1, which they argued had been sidelined during last year's negotiations on the new global finance goal.

''It was one of India's key asks and at least we now have a work programme,'' the former environment ministry official said.

Experts also welcomed progress on unilateral trade measures (UTMs), a sensitive issue for developing countries. Previously blocked from the agenda at successive COPs, UTMs such as the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism were taken up in Belem through presidency-led consultations.

The ''Global Mutirão'' outcome establishes three annual dialogues on trade to be held during the UN climate meetings in Bonn in 2026, 2027 and 2028.

Experts said this finally opens a formal space to discuss measures that could affect exports from developing countries.

During the discussion, Laveesh Bhandari, President of the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), said India must deepen cooperation on climate-related technologies, including with China, while ''keeping its security concerns intact''.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)