COP29 meet: Cannot accept attempts to shift focus from finance, says India

India said on Thursday that it will not accept any effort by developed countries to shift the focus away from climate finance for developing countries and place it on emissions reductions in the Global South.

It also said that without adequate support in terms of finance, technology, and capacity building, the fight against climate change would be severely impacted.

In response to the draft text on the new climate finance goal released early Thursday, India's Environment and Climate Secretary Leena Nandan said the shift in focus at a time when it is crucial to ensure full support for mitigation actions through adequate finance is disappointing.

"COP after COP, we keep talking about mitigation ambitions, what is to be done without talking about how it is to be done. This COP started with a focus on enablement through a new climate finance goal (NCQG), but as we move towards the end, we see shifting of the focus to mitigation," she said.

Nandan, who is leading the Indian delegation at the UN climate conference in Baku, said India cannot accept any attempts to "deflect" the focus from finance to the "repeated emphasis on mitigation".

"The attempt by some parties to further talk about mitigation is primarily a shift in focus from their responsibilities of providing finance," she added.

According to the United Nations Climate Convention, high-income industrialised nations, who historically contributed the most to greenhouse gas emissions, are responsible for providing finance and technology to help developing countries address and adapt to climate change.

These countries include the US, the UK, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and EU member states such as Germany and France.

At COP29, these nations have attempted to push developing countries to make deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions without addressing the central issue of the talks -- finance.

Nandan said that continuous talk of mitigation has no meaning unless supported by the enablement needed to make climate actions happen on the ground.

"Finance is the most critical enabler for the new NDCs we are required to formulate and implement," the environment secretary said.

She reminded countries that the decision made at COP29 will influence the next round of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) or national climate goals, which countries must submit to the UN climate change office by February 2025.

Nandan called for clarity on the structure, amount, quality, time frame, access, and transparency in the draft text for the new climate finance goal.

She said developed countries should provide USD 600 billion per year in public funds as part of the total USD 1.3 trillion per year that developing countries are demanding starting in 2025.

The official also said the new climate finance goal (NCQG) is not an investment goal and that developed countries' proposal to make some developing countries contribute to climate finance, suggestions for carbon pricing, and a focus on private sector investments to scale up resources go against the original purpose of the goal.

At COP29, countries are required to decide on the new climate finance package, or NCQG, from rich nations to help developing countries reduce emissions and cope with the escalating impacts of climate change.

Developing countries say they need at least USD 1.3 trillion annually -- 13 times the USD 100 billion pledged in 2009 -- to meet the growing challenges.

The climate talks are scheduled to close on Friday, but developed countries have yet to officially propose a figure.

However, their negotiators indicated that European Union nations were discussing a global climate finance target of USD 200 billion to USD 300 billion per year.

Developing nations are demanding that most of the funding come straight from developed countries' public coffers. They reject the idea of leaning on the private sector, which they say is more interested in profit than accountability.

The US and EU say the NCQG should be an expansive global investment goal that draws from public, private, domestic, and international sources.

They are also urging wealthier countries like China and Gulf states -- classified as developing in 1992 -- to chip in, pointing to their more prosperous status today.

Developing nations see this as a clever move to avoid responsibility for past emissions by shifting the burden to those who industrialised more recently.

Countries have been trying to craft the new climate finance package for three years, but so far, they have failed to find common ground.