New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unlikely to attend the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Brazil. Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav will be attending this year’s climate summit, leading the Indian delegation.
Top sources in the environment ministry confirmed that this year at the Leaders Summit, which is a significant part of the annual climate conference, usually attended by state heads, ministers and high-level UN representatives, India will likely be represented by Dinesh Bhatia, Indian ambassador to Brazil.
IAS officer Amandeep Garg, additional secretary at the Ministry of Environment, will be India’s lead negotiator.
COP-30 will be held 11-20 November, the Leaders Summit will be held 6-7 November.
Both PM Modi and Yadav had skipped the last COP—COP-29, also called the ‘finance COP’—organised in Baku, Azerbaijan, owing to the overlap of its dates with the Maharashtra elections. COP-29 negotiations were held between 11 and 22 November, and Maharashtra went to polls on 20 November, two days before the summit concluded.
The Indian delegation last year was led by Minister of State for External Affairs and Environment Kirti Vardhan Singh, who also presented India’s national statement at a high-level segment.
Last time, India also did not have a pavilion.
Key discussions at COP-30
The 30th edition of COP not only marks three decades of global climate talks, but 10 years since the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Environment ministry officials said one of the focus areas of this year’s climate summit would be adaptation—especially negotiations of indicators to monitor countries’ progress on their climate commitments.
Other discussion areas would be around just transition, which would entail discussions on how countries can shift to low-carbon, environmentally sustainable economies in a fair and inclusive manner, and global stocktake, an assessment of progress made toward mitigating global warming since the Paris Agreement.
The first global stocktake was conducted in COP-28, held in Dubai in 2023. The modalities of the next process, due in 2028 as part of COP-33, will also be discussed this year.
“Climate finance is an important issue in all COP discussions, and this time too, it will be an important discussion,” an environment ministry official said.
Last month, at the pre-COP meeting in Brasilia, Yadav had urged that this year the climate summit should be a COP of adaptation.
“We should all agree on a minimum package of indicators from the UAE-Belem Work Programme, leaving some of the rest for further technical discussion as necessary,” Yadav said in his speech.
The minister also said that in the upcoming COP, countries must focus on turning climate commitments into achievable actions to accelerate their implementation.
“As we mark a decade since the Paris Agreement, let COP-30 in Belem reaffirm faith in multilateralism, equity, and collective resolve to deliver real, measurable action for people and the planet,” he said.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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