- By Aditya Sinha
- Wed, 19 Nov 2025 09:12 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
If ever there was a moment that exposed the deep disingenuousness of the developed world on climate change, COP30 in Belém is it. Three decades after the UN climate regime was born, the annual conference has become a theatre of contradictions: the world’s biggest historical emitters thumping tables about ambition while refusing to finance the transition they insist the rest of the world must undertake. The wealthy nations that built their prosperity on two centuries of coal, oil and gas now pretend to be the guardians of the global climate order, even as they quietly protect their industries, weaponise climate-related trade measures, and shirk the financial responsibilities that justice demands.
The result is a summit in paralysis, a negotiation process drowning in paperwork, and a rapidly closing window for meaningful global cooperation. It is in this landscape of hypocrisy, evasion and geopolitical fragility that India has emerged as one of the few large powers offering a serious, fair and principled pathway forward.
Belém was supposed to mark a new chapter: a “COP of Implementation,” one that would focus less on promises and more on delivery. Instead, the first week of negotiations has already revealed deep fractures. Diplomats are openly questioning whether the COP process is fit for purpose at all.
The UN system is buckling under the weight of procedures and consensus rules that enable a single country to sabotage meaningful outcomes. The European Union has spent more time defending its carbon border tax (CBAM) than deliberating on how to address the yawning gap between climate pledges and the Paris Agreement’s goals. For many developing countries, CBAM is a green tariff designed to shield European industries from global competition.
Nearly every major exporter has warned that unilateral trade measures will poison the climate regime. Yet, instead of addressing the legitimacy of these concerns, the EU appears more intent on ensuring that climate negotiations themselves do not challenge its protectionist impulses. In the background, the United States’ tariff wars have already strained global trust to breaking point. Climate diplomacy, once a domain of moral urgency, now collides headlong with trade geopolitics.
Layered atop this is the deeper fight: who pays for the end of the fossil-fuel age? Developing countries say they need $1.3 trillion annually. What the world has delivered instead is a promised $300 billion by 2035, most of it loans, and barely a third of that has actually materialised. The fundamental injustice is glaring: those who contributed least to the crisis are being asked to pay the most for its resolution. The wealthy world, which spends trillions protecting its bond markets and subsidising its own industries, suddenly claims poverty when asked to fund the climate transition of the global South.
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Against this bleak backdrop, India’s stand at COP30 is both an anchor of integrity and a roadmap for how to rescue the global climate project. India has articulated four pillars that together represent the only coherent framework for genuine, equitable climate cooperation.
The first pillar is the uncompromising insistence on equity, climate justice and CBDR-RC. Speaking for both BASIC and LMDC, India has reminded the world that the Paris Agreement’s architecture cannot be rewritten by stealth. India has reiterated that the development gap between the North and South remains vast, and that any attempt to dilute CBDR-RC undermines trust and fairness.
The demand is simple: nations that polluted early and abundantly must cut emissions earlier and support those still growing. India has emphasised that developed countries must reach net zero far earlier than 2050 to preserve equitable carbon space for developing economies. Without this, global climate governance becomes an instrument of inequality.
The second pillar is India’s demand that COP30 be the COP of Implementation and COP of Delivery, with climate finance as the defining test. India has said clearly that finance is not charity; it is a legal obligation under Article 9.1. It has called for a universally agreed definition of climate finance, a 15-fold increase in adaptation funding, and massive, predictable, concessional flows — in trillions, not billions.
India has exposed the fallacy of relying on private finance or loan-heavy packages that deepen debt vulnerability. Grants, not gimmicks, must lead. The world cannot expect developing countries to transform energy systems, build resilient agriculture, and protect communities while simultaneously servicing high-interest climate loans.
The third pillar is India’s assertion that technology access is a right, not a bargaining chip. Climate-critical technologies cannot be locked behind restrictive intellectual property regimes that make them unaffordable to the South. India has demanded a strong Technology Implementation Programme that dismantles IP and market barriers. In a world where solutions already exist, denying access is tantamount to climate negligence.
The fourth pillar is India’s rejection of unilateral climate-related trade measures — from CBAM to disguised green tariffs — which violate Article 3.5 and threaten to turn climate policy into a tool of protectionism. India’s warning is clear: unilateralism fractures multilateralism, divides the world, and punishes the very countries that need policy space to develop sustainably. A rules-based global order cannot survive if powerful economies enforce climate compliance through tariffs while failing their own obligations on finance and technology.
India’s credibility is strengthened by its actions. It has reduced emission intensity by over 36% since 2005, achieved its 2030 non-fossil capacity target five years early, built more than 256 GW of clean capacity, and launched transformative missions in green hydrogen, nuclear energy and biofuels. It will submit revised NDCs till 2035 and its first Biennial Transparency Report on time. It has planted over 2 billion trees through community participation. It leads global platforms, ISA, GBA, CDRI, that deliver real public goods to the world.
In a COP overshadowed by trade wars, fossil-fuel obstructionism and wealthy nations’ refusal to pay their fair share, India has emerged as the only major power articulating a fair, workable and morally defensible climate vision. Belém will be remembered either as the moment the North finally accepted responsibility, or as the summit where the world realised, too late, that climate injustice is simply another form of climate denial. India has shown what an honest pathway looks like. The question is whether the developed world is willing to walk it.
(Disclaimer: The author is a public policy analyst. Views are personal.)