"A lot of talk, but no money" – India on climate action

The upcoming 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) in the UAE should make visible progress on issues such as technology transfer and the availability of funds for developing countries to mitigate climate change, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said.

Her remarks come days before global leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, gather in Dubai on Thursday.

“A lot of talk, but no money coming on the table; there are no pathways to show how technology is going to be transferred,” Sitharaman said at a virtual session of the inaugural India Global Forum Middle East and Africa 2023 (IGF ME&A).

She insisted that conversations and discussions should translate into “meaningful steps for climate action,” and highlighted the need for “concrete outcomes” at COP28.

For several decades, countries exposed to the negative impact of climate change have been calling for financial support from richer and more developed economies, mainly in the so-called Global North, to help them cope with global warming and related issues.

India has recently emerged as one of the main voices in this struggle. The COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt concluded with a historic breakthrough aimed at helping vulnerable countries to deal with losses and damage from climate change.

Modi attended the COP26 conference in 2021 in Glasgow, where he unveiled India’s five-step ‘Panchamrit’ strategy against climate change and announced New Delhi’s ambitious plan to attain net-zero status by 2070.

“We all know this truth that the promises made to date regarding climate finance have proven to be hollow. While we all are raising our ambitions on climate action, the world’s ambitions on climate finance cannot remain the same as they were at the time of the Paris Agreement,” he said at the time.

He also emphasized the importance of the transfer of climate finance and low-cost climate technologies. “India expects developed countries to provide climate finance of $1 trillion at the earliest opportunity. Today, it is necessary that as we track the progress made in climate mitigation, we should also track climate finance,” the Indian leader added.