India’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions grew by 0.5% in the second half of 2025 and by just 0.7% in the year as a whole, the slowest rate in more than two decades.
This is a sharp slowdown from the growth of 4-11% in the preceding four years and marks the lowest rate of increase since 2001, excluding the impact of Covid in 2020.
This is the second in a new series of half-yearly analysis on India’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement, based on official data for fuel use, industrial production and power output.
Other key findings for 2025 as a whole include:
- Emissions in the power sector fell by 3.8% as record clean-energy growth combined with weak electricity demand.
- New clean-energy capacity in 2025 will add a record 90 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity output each year, double the previous record set in 2024.
- The largest reductions in coal power were in the states leading on wind and solar.
- Oil demand grew by 0.4% and gas fell by 4%, far behind recent growth rates.
- Steel production surged by 8% and cement by 10%.
- In total, CO2 emissions went up slightly year-on-year, as increases from steel and cement outweighed the falls in gas demand and coal power.
- Consumption of imported coal at power plants fell by 20%, while gas imports fell by 6% and net oil imports were flat year-on-year, reducing India’s vulnerability to the impacts of the Iran war.
The analysis shows that India’s power sector is poised for a potential inflection point, where clean-energy additions can meet or exceed the growth in electricity demand.
If clean energy matches expectations, allowing this inflection point to take place, then coal-fired power output and the associated CO2 emissions would see sustained falls.
In addition, oil demand is falling in the petrochemical industry and is expected to slow down in the steel and cement sectors.
Despite these trends, which could signal a lasting slowdown in emissions, India is planning major expansions in its capacity for coal power, petrochemicals and coal-based steel.
The country’s Paris Agreement targets for 2035, which were published yesterday, did not reflect the potential for slower emissions increases or continued clean-energy growth.
The path of India’s CO2 emissions over the coming years depends on how it resolves these apparent contradictions regarding its future demand for fossil fuels.
Slowest growth since 2001
India’s CO2 emissions have been growing rapidly for decades, with annual increases averaging 4.9% per year since 1990 and 4-11% during 2021-24.
However, the recent pace of growth has been slowing down, as shown in the figure below. The 0.7% rise in 2025 was the slowest since 2001, excluding the impact of Covid in 2020.
Beneath the overall rise of just 0.7% in 2025, there were divergent trends in India’s key emitting sectors, with some seeing rapid rises in CO2 and others in historic decline.
This is shown in the figure below, which compares year-on-year changes in emissions during the first and second half of 2025 with the average for 2021-23.
Specifically, emissions fell by 3.8% year-on-year in the power sector, after the first drop in coal-power generation – outside Covid – since 1973. Oil products were more or less flat.
The small increase in 2025 overall was the result of strong growth from steel and cement.
The fall in power-sector emissions is particularly notable, given it was the largest driver of emissions increases in 2021-2023, responsible for half of the total growth.
Across the sectors, the reductions and weak growth in fossil-fuel consumption eased India’s vulnerability to the recent price and supply disruptions taking place in the wake of the attacks on Iran by the US and Israel, as well as Iran’s subsequent retaliation.
Notably, India’s fossil-fuel imports were disproportionately affected by falling demand overall. For example, consumption of imported coal at power plants fell by 20% in 2025.
(Coal imports continued to fall in early 2026. However, the government is reported to be considering the use of an emergency clause that “would force coal power plants that run on imported coal to maximise output ahead of the summer season”, due to the impact of the Iran war on gas supplies.)
According to data from consultancy Kpler, gas imports fell 6% and net oil imports were flat, for the first time since the Covid-induced drop in 2020. The only rise in imports was of coal for steelmaking, which were up by 11% year-on-year in 2025.
Record clean-power growth
There were two key reasons why emissions fell in India’s power sector in 2025.
First, the country added 38 gigawatts (GW) of solar, 6.3GW of wind, 4.0GW of hydropower and 0.6GW of nuclear power in 2025.
The annual electricity generation from this new capacity, calculated based on the average capacity utilisation of each technology, amounts to 90 terawatt hours (TWh). This is twice as much as the clean generation added in 2024, which in itself was a record.
Power generation from solar grew by 30TWh and from wind by 20TWh in 2025, exceeding the 18TWh increase in total output. Hydropower also performed strongly due to high rainfall and capacity additions, with generation growing 21TWh.
Second, growth in total power demand slowed down from 7.4% in 2019-23 to 1% in 2025, which obviously played a major role in the fall in power-sector emissions.
The slow growth was due to both weather – with milder temperatures after 2024 heatwaves reducing the demand for air conditioning – and a more sustained slowdown in demand that had already started in late 2023 and was initially masked by the heatwaves. This slowdown in electricity demand is related to slower growth in industrial output and GDP.
Notably, the increase in clean-power generation from newly added capacity in 2025 was sufficient to cover demand growth of up to 5%. This means that power-sector emissions growth would have slowed down sharply, even if demand had not been flagging.
State-level analysis, shown in the figure below, emphasises the role of clean-energy growth in reducing fossil-powered generation.
The largest reductions in coal-fired power generation took place in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan, the three states that also led the buildout of new solar and wind power.
Power demand is expected to pick up again, with Indian credit-rating agency ICRA projecting growth of 5.0-5.5% in the financial year starting in April 2026.
However, expected clean-energy additions should cover this level of growth.
BloombergNEF projects a 6% year-on-year increase in installed solar capacity in 2026. The government expects wind power capacity to reach 63GW by March 2027, a 10GW increase compared with the end of 2025, indicating a further acceleration of capacity additions compared with the 6GW added in 2025.
Indian utilities are also targeting the completion of construction on 6.8GW of new hydropower capacity, excluding pumped storage, and 1GW of nuclear capacity in 2026.
These capacity additions would deliver additional annual generation of more than 100TWh, enough to cover demand growth of up to 5.8%.
This means that India’s power sector could reach an inflection point this year, where clean-energy growth matches the expected average rise in demand, as shown below.
Over the next five years, ICRA forecasts annual average demand growth of 6.0 to 6.5%.
Yet India is also targeting 500GW non-fossil power generation capacity by the financial year 2029-2030. If achieved, this target would increase non-fossil power generation by enough to cover electricity demand growth of 6.6%, without needing to increase fossil-fuel generation, based on the Central Electricity Authority’s projected power generation.
If the actual growth rate for power demand is lower than this and if the non-fossil capacity target is still reached, then fossil-power generation – and the associated CO2 emissions – would fall in absolute terms from 2025 to financial year 2029-2030.
Battery energy storage is also increasingly affordable and will reduce the need for thermal power capacity in the system.
Oil slows on falling industrial demand
For oil demand, which slowed from 3.9% growth in 2024 to 0.4% in 2025, the key drivers came in the petrochemical and cement industry, where demand fell.
Specifically, demand fell for naphtha, petcoke and other oil products. Naphtha is used as chemical industry feedstock, while petcoke is used mainly in cement production.
Part of the fall in demand was due to an increase in India’s imports of plastics and precursors, which rose by 7% in volume terms, while exports fell.
The increase in imports came almost entirely from China, where the petrochemical industry is expanding, leading to complaints in India of price dumping. Mirroring the shift of plastics production to China, India began exporting large volumes of naphtha to the country.
India’s imports of nitrogen fertilisers also increased sharply, with most of the increase coming from China and Russia, while domestic production fell by 6% in April-September. Fertiliser production is the second-most important use of naphtha.
Petcoke use in cement production fell slightly, by 1%, even as cement production surged, as producers shifted to using more domestic coal in response to rising petcoke prices.
In the transport sector, petrol and diesel growth moderated in 2025, as the slow rebound to the pre-Covid trend in demand had finally played out. In addition, mobility was reduced in 2025 due to heavy monsoon rains in June to August.
Meanwhile, compressed natural gas (CNG) and electric vehicles also cut into the markets for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, eating into petrol and diesel demand, respectively. EV sales grew 16% in 2025 and made up 8% of auto sales, helped by a reduction in the goods and services tax (GST) on EVs from 12% to 5%.
GST reform also reduced diesel consumption in a more surprising way, by eliminating the need for manual inspection of cargoes and cutting long wait-times at interstate border posts.
Diesel demand growth was also moderated by a government scheme to replace diesel irrigation pumps, which consume 5% of all diesel in the country, with solar-powered models.
Air pollution rules also played a role in some cities, including the capital Delhi. There, regulations on diesel vehicles resulted in a 13% reduction in sales from a year earlier, continuing the trend observed over the past two years.
Experts attribute lower sales of diesel vehicles to changes in consumer behaviour, following the long-standing ban on diesel vehicles older than 10 years and petrol models of more than 15 years in the wider Delhi National Capital Region (NCR), as well as a Supreme Court order in August 2025 that stressed the need for vehicles to comply with newer emissions rules.
Finally, aviation fuel demand growth slowed from 10% in 2024 to 3% in 2025, as the return to the pre-Covid trend in rising traffic leveled off.
The most immediate effect of the oil and gas crisis caused by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has been on the supply of liquified petroleum gas (LPG), which in India is used almost solely as cooking fuel.
Shortages have affected households, restaurants and industries. LPG consumption had grown by 6% year-on-year in 2025, in line with the longer-term trend, but is responsible for only 3% India’s CO2 emissions.
The crisis has reportedly also prompted a shift to cooking with electricity, with the sales of induction stoves reportedly surging.
Steel and cement continue to surge
The overall rise in India’s emissions in 2025 was driven by strong growth in output for steel and cement, which went up by 8% and 10%, respectively. The two sectors were responsible for 21% of India’s total CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industrial processes in 2025.
India’s steel sector is more polluting than elsewhere, with the CO2 per unit of production – its emissions intensity – being more than 20% higher than the global average.
Two-thirds of steel is used for construction. Strong steel demand in 2025 reflected growth in new housing construction in earlier years, as the market was rebounding from the mid-2010s crash and the Covid pandemic. However, new project launches and sales both declined in 2025.
Domestic steel output growth was attenuated in the first half of the year by increases in steel imports from China, Japan and South Korea. This resulted in the government enacting a temporary blanket tariff in April 2025 for 200 days to curb imports.
As a result, steel output growth accelerated from 6% in January to May to 10% in the rest of the year. In November 2025, when the earlier temporary tariff expired, the government imposed new tariffs on a more targeted list of countries.
It imposed a three-year step-down tariff – 12% in the first year, 11.5% in year two and 11% in year three – to curb imports from China, Vietnam and Nepal, as these countries were found to exceed the thresholds for imports for various steel products.
In spite of the tariffs, the industry is struggling with weak profitability. Output growth has “led to a situation of oversupply”, according to ICRA, resulting in falling profitability and capacity utilisation, particularly at smaller mills, which account for 41% of total steel production.
Delays in construction and infrastructure projects are also weighing down on India’s steel demand, leading to rising inventories and falling prices. This is likely to affect the demand for steel, cement and bitumen in 2026.
Meanwhile, government initiatives could encourage a shift in the type and emissions intensity of steel production. State-backed schemes – particularly programmes to build affordable urban and rural housing – are significant steel demand drivers.
The Ministry of Steel is working on mandates for “green steel” in public procurement as part of a broader Green Steel Mission aimed at decarbonising the sector.
The policy is expected to require government agencies and publicly funded projects to buy lower-emission steel, creating demand for greener production.
Power could be nearing an inflection point
The sharp slowdown in India’s overall CO2 emissions growth has now lasted 18 months, making it increasingly likely that it is not just a blip.
Electricity demand growth slowed down sharply in 2025, which could be taken to imply that the lower growth in CO2 last year was mainly down to fluctuations in power demand.
However, clean-energy growth in 2025 was large enough to have stabilised emissions in the power sector, even if demand growth had been at historical rates.
Now, power-sector emissions could be about to reach an inflection point, with clean-energy additions projected to overtake average rate of electricity demand growth in 2026, for the first time. This already happened in 2025 in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, the highly populated states leading solar and wind development.
If clean-energy growth rates continue and if demand growth stays at expected levels, then clean energy will cover all of the growth in electricity demand. This would mean that electricity generation from fossil fuels would level off or decline.
Given that the power sector was the largest driver of emissions increases in 2021-2023, peaking coal-fired power generation and emissions from the sector would have a major impact on India’s overall fossil-fuel consumption and emissions.
The other significant emitting sector where emissions have been falling in India is the petrochemical industry.
In contrast, the steel industry has continued to increase output, even though it is struggling with profitability and concerns about overcapacity, while demand for steel and cement is expected to cool down this year due to lower growth in construction volumes.
Despite these trends, the country is planning for a major expansion of all of these industries. The government plans to add 85GW of new coal-fired power capacity over the next seven years. The country is also targeting $1tn of investment in the petrochemical industry by 2040, a 50% increase in steel production capacity from 2025 to 2031 and a 25% increase in cement production capacity in the three years from 2026 to 2028.
The planned investment in steelmaking is overwhelmingly coal-based capacity. This will increase the sector’s reliance on metallurgical coal, which is almost entirely imported, as well as running against government ambitions to increase lower-carbon steelmaking.
India’s Cabinet approved new 2035 climate pledges for the country yesterday. The targets are a reduction in carbon intensity – the emissions per unit of GDP – of 47% from 2005 level by 2035 and a non-fossil energy share of 60% in power generation capacity.
The 60% target would already be achieved by 2030, under the Central Electricity Authority’s recent projections. The carbon-intensity target would allow the country’s CO2 emissions growth to accelerate in the next 10 years, compared with the preceding decade, even as the recent clean-energy growth suggests that a substantial slowdown is possible.
If GDP growth averages 7.8%, the rate needed to meet India’s 2047 economic goals, then CO2 emissions could increase at 6% per year from 2025 to 2035 while still meeting the carbon-intensity target, compared with less than 4% growth from 2015 to 2025.
India’s energy and emissions trajectory over the next 5-10 years will depend heavily on how these apparent contradictions are resolved. This is particularly true in the power sector, where clean energy and storage are already set to cover future growth.
About the data
This analysis is based on official monthly data for fuel consumption, industrial production and power generation from different ministries and government institutes.
Coal consumption in thermal power plants is taken from the monthly reports downloaded from the National Power Portal of the Ministry of Power. The data is compiled for the period January 2019 until June 2025. Power generation and capacity by technology and fuel on a monthly basis are sourced from the NITI data portal.
Coal use at steel and cement plants, as well as process emissions from cement production, are estimated using production indices from the index of eight core industries released monthly by the Office of Economic Adviser, assuming that changes in total fossil fuel use follow production volumes.
These production indices were used to scale fuel use by the sectors in 2022. To form a basis for using the indices, monthly coal consumption data for 2022 was constructed for the sectors using the annual total coal and petcoke consumption reported in IEA World Energy Balances and monthly production data in a paper by Robbie Andrew, on monthly CO2 emission accounting for India. Monthly petcoke consumption was available from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell, and coal consumption by the cement industry was calculated by subtracting petcoke use from total fossil fuel use.
Annual cement process emissions up to 2024 were also taken from Robbie Andrew’s work and scaled using the production indices. This approach better approximated changes in energy use and emissions reported in the IEA World Energy Balances, than did the amounts of coal reported to have been dispatched to the sectors, showing that production volumes are the dominant driver of short-term changes in emissions.
For other sectors, including aluminium, auto, chemical and petrochemical, paper and plywood, pharmaceutical, graphite electrode, sugar, textile, mining, traders and others, coal consumption is estimated based on data on despatch of domestic and imported coal to end users from statistical reports and monthly reports by the Ministry of Coal, as consumption data is not available.
Coal consumption by “captive” coal power plants – those supplying power to industrial sites, not to the public electricity network – was calculated based on capacity changes from Global Energy Monitor, assuming constant utilisation, as utilisation has been very stable year-to-year, as calculated from Central Electricity Authority data.
The difference between coal consumption and dispatch is stock changes, which are estimated by assuming that the changes in the amount of coal stored at end user facilities mirror those at coal mines, with end user inventories excluding power, steel and cement assumed to be 70% of those at coal mines, based on comparisons between our data and the IEA World Energy Balances.
Stock changes at mines are estimated as the difference between production at and dispatch from coal mines, as reported by the Ministry of Coal.
Coal consumption is estimated in two ways, for sectors beyond power, steel and cement. Consumption of domestic coal in these other sectors is taken from the monthly reports by the Ministry of Coal. Their consumption of imported coal is estimated from the total imports of thermal coal reported by consultancy Kpler, by subtracting demand for imports at coal-power plants. The basis for this assumption is that steel and cement industries use little imported thermal coal, according to Ministry of Coal data.
Product-by-product consumption data for petroleum products, as well as gas use by sector, is from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
As the fuel dispatch and consumption data is reported as physical volumes – such as tonnes or litres – calorific values are taken from IEA’s World Energy Balance and CO2 emission factors from 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.
Calorific values are assigned separately to different fuel types, including domestic and imported coal, anthracite and coke, as well as to petrol, diesel and several other oil products.
The post Analysis: India’s CO2 emissions in 2025 grew at slowest rate in two decades appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: India’s CO2 emissions in 2025 grew at slowest rate in two decades
Anuradha Barua, Aakriti Wanchoo and Swapan Mehra are from Iora Ecological Solutions, a New Delhi-based company focused on nature-based solutions, climate action, conservation and environmental policy.
When Rojo Neog’s village in northeast India was hit by a power cut in July, he headed out to buy candles. Three days later, his body was recovered – swept away by surging floodwaters. His niece said the water had risen from knee- to neck-level in about half an hour.
The devastating floods highlight how climate risk across India is becoming harder to confine to a season or a disaster bulletin. Just weeks before the disaster in Assam, authorities in Mumbai rationed water as reservoir storage fell to just over 10%.
India does not lack warnings about climate risk. The more difficult task is making sure money, institutions and communities are ready to act before those warnings become disasters. Adaptation should not be just an obligation once a crisis has arrived, but an investment made while there is still something to protect.
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Bonn climate talks end in “gridlock” on adaptation and emissions-cutting
Splits between developed and developing countries over finance and science held back progress on key areas of climate action, leaving disappointment and much work for COP31
As governments head towards COP31 in Antalya this November, India should push not only for more adaptation finance, but for finance that arrives earlier and can be traced to outcomes on the ground.
That is the gap India needs to close if we wish to become truly resilient in the face of the changing climate. Money must move with risk, institutions must know what to do before an emergency is declared, and long-term spending must reduce vulnerability before it becomes loss.
India’s adaptation disconnect
This year the disconnect has become painfully clear in Assam, where more than 100 people have died due to the flooding, with nearly 140,000 people across seven districts affected. More than 450 villages remain inundated, while some 49,000 people are taking shelter in relief camps after losing everything.
No financing mechanism can stop a river from rising. But timely measures can change what happens before it does. If forecasts and river levels triggered financing before the water arrived, authorities could position boats and stock shelters, and evacuate people where needed, while families could move cattle, seed, medicines and documents before roads disappeared.
For Indian women workers, a just transition means surviving climate impacts with dignity
India already has much of the information needed to address climate change. High-risk states and districts should agree in advance which local thresholds trigger action, who is responsible and how funds will be released, so officials do not have to negotiate responsibility and budgets from scratch once risk becomes an emergency.
Linking community know-how to financing
Our work in Majuli, a river island district in Assam, shows why this matters.
Across 64 villages, communities helped identify flood and erosion risks, assess their capacity to respond, and to develop resilience measures with indicative budgets and possible funding sources.
Communities often know what would help; the harder task is connecting that knowledge to institutions and finance that can act on it.
Extreme heat costing India’s poorest workers 2% of GDP, survey finds
Public health offers an example of how systems can adapt as risks change. In New Delhi, vector-control workers who once prepared for a defined “dengue season” now remain on alert throughout the year, using surveillance and hotspot mapping to identify risks earlier.
The next step is to make these systems more predictive by integrating climate forecasts into public health planning.
India needs sustained investment in drainage, health systems, wetlands, water security and climate-resilient agriculture. Some will remain public responsibilities; others, including water reuse, efficient irrigation, resilient cold chains and risk-proofed infrastructure, can generate savings or revenue and attract private capital if projects are prepared well.
The economic case for adaptation is not always about generating new revenue. Often, it is about avoiding future costs. Flood shelters, public-health preparedness, early-warning systems and support for the poorest households will still need public or grant finance. The point is to match the finance to the risk rather than treat adaptation as a single financing problem.
Rising disaster bill shows cost of inaction
India is already spending heavily on adaptation, with related expenditure reaching 5.6% of GDP in 2021-22. Yet tracked adaptation finance was only about $15 billion annually, almost entirely from domestic public sources, against estimated needs of about $100 billion a year through 2030.
Internationally, the shortfall is wider: developing countries may need $310 billion-$365 billion annually by 2035, compared with just $26 billion in international public adaptation finance in 2023.
For governments repeatedly paying for flood, droughts and heat relief, the cost of inaction can quickly exceed the cost of building resilience, though not all the costs of inaction appear neatly on a balance sheet.
In floodplain landscapes such as Assam’s Kaziranga National Park, animals move towards higher ground every monsoon as the floodplain fills, crossing roads and leaving the park in search of safety. During the 2024 floods, 215 animals died, including 13 one-horned rhinos.
Development plans in such sensitive landscapes must leave room for water, wildlife and communities to move safely. A wetland may not generate monetary revenue, but the floodwater it stores has real value. The cost of losing that capacity may only become visible when the next flood arrives.
Comment: Climate adaptation in Africa needs investment, not imported solutions
Success should not be measured only by how quickly relief follows a disaster. It should also be measured by what never had to be replaced: people and animals moved before the water rose, seeds kept dry, medicines waiting at the shelter, a wetland that still had room to hold water, and a family that could leave while the road was still open.
Adaptation becomes an investment when it preserves those choices before they disappear.
The post India needs climate adaptation cash to be an investment, not a quick fix appeared first on Climate Home News.
India needs climate adaptation cash to be an investment, not a quick fix
The African continent’s hopes for a legally binding agreement to combat drought have been dashed again, as UN land restoration talks in Mongolia passed the issue onto the next set of talks in Egypt in two years’ time.
For over a decade, Africa has pushed for a UN protocol on drought risk management that would acknowledge drought as an issue requiring a regional and global – not just a national – response, potentially paving the way for more finance to help ensure water is available when drought hits.
A formal protocol would enable countries to transition from reacting to drought once it hits to “a proactive enabling mechanism to address drought and its effects such as migration”, said a Tunisian negotiator on behalf of the African Group of countries last week. Once land is regularly too dry and infertile to grow crops or graze animals, people often leave to seek a living elsewhere.
But this effort to adopt a protocol, led by Africa, has been resisted at successive land restoration COPs under the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), mainly by developed countries, which argue that a legally weaker alternative – a framework – would be faster and cheaper to set up.
Governments at the previous COP in Saudi Arabia in 2024 failed to reach agreement despite talks running past midnight, while this year’s saw African officials coordinate a walkout from negotiating rooms on Wednesday morning, according to two sources at the talks.
Drought deal delayed until 2028
The IISD’s Earth Negotiations Bulletin, a non-governmental organisation which unlike the media is allowed to watch and report on closed-door talks, said a call to suspend negotiations on Wednesday showed negotiations had reached “boiling point” and “made some jaws drop”.
Negotiations resumed after a lunchtime meeting with the Mongolian COP presidency although governments were only eventually able to agree that they could not find consensus in Ulaanbaatar and should resume talks on an instrument to deal with drought in 2028.
Christine Colvin, WWF’s head of freshwater policy, told Climate Home News that, with droughts hitting from Honduras to the English region of Hampshire, something concrete – whether a protocol or a framework – is needed urgently “rather than the can being kicked down the road for another two years as will now happen with the protocol procrastination”.
But, in a closing press conference on Friday, the Mongolian minister presiding over talks celebrated that governments had reached consensus on several “contentious” issues and that agenda items blocked at this year’s COP17 would be put on the agenda for COP18 in Egypt.
US blocks agenda items
Other agenda items that divided countries were on measuring land degradation’s effects on women, enhancing the involvement of civil society and women in land COPs, and the UNCCD working more closely and effectively with the UN’s climate and nature conventions.
On the COP’s opening day two weeks ago, the US representative said the Trump government objects to these agenda items “on their premise and no amount of negotiation will allow us to join consensus on these items. As such we request that they be struck from the agenda at which time we will then be able to approve it, saving us valuable negotiating time.”
A US State Department spokesperson later told Climate Home News that the US wants the UN “to get back to basics by refocusing on its core mandate, eliminating overlap, and reducing competition for scarce resources”.
The spokesperson added, “that means prioritising the concrete work member states created [the UN] to do – rather than diverting limited time, attention, and resources toward social and political agendas, including gender-related initiatives.”
On COP’s first day, the European Union and Brazil pushed back against the blocking of these agenda items, with a Brazilian negotiator saying his country attaches “great importance” to them. But the Mongolian presidency directed governments to adopt the rest of the agenda without the controversial items, which were discussed privately with countries throughout the two weeks.
An EU statement, read out later by Irish minister Timmy Dooley, accused “some parties” (meaning national governments) of having adopted a “less constructive approach” and preventing “discussions on important matters from even commencing”.
The agenda items the US refused to engage with were never discussed and were only placed onto the agenda for the next COP on the last day. Those talks will take place in Egypt in two years’ time, with Donald Trump due then to be in his last year as US president.
No restoration without women
The blocking of the gender agenda item has stymied attempts, agreed on by governments at the last COP, to develop gender-specific indicators for the UNCCD’s next overall framework and to facilitate more women delegates at COPs. Women made up only about a quarter of delegates to COP15 in 2022, UNCCD analysis with the latest data shows
Criticising the move to keep gender off the agenda, the EU said in a statement that it welcomes “the attention being given at COP17 to women pastoralists and herders, recognising their contribution to sustainable land management and resilient rural livelihoods”.
The head of the UNCCD, former Egyptian environment minister Yasmine Fouad, said on Friday that “regardless that the agenda item was blocked”, she was proud that she and COP17 President Batmunkh Battsetseg had led the COP as women and attended the gender caucus (a meeting of groups supporting women at the talks).
“Without the women,” she told the closing press conference on Friday, “we will not be able to restore land, restore hope, restore life or restore even our children and grandchildren. And we will keep on pushing that agenda.”
The civil society agenda item aimed to allow NGOs to attend land COP negotiations, as they do at climate COPs, and included terms of reference for an Indigenous Peoples Caucus.
A representative of Indigenous Peoples told the COP’s closing plenary meeting that the group had “deep disappointment that the agenda of this COP has removed the dedicated space for indigenous peoples”. “We cannot restore the land while removing the voices of those who care for it,” she said.
On Tuesday, the UNCCD’s deputy head Andrea Meza was asked about Indigenous Peoples’ participation. She said that the blocking of “one agenda item” is “generating uncertainty in the progress” towards creating caucuses for Indigenous Peoples and for Local Communities within the talks.
Because of the “complex geopolitical situation” making it hard to obtain consensus, coalitions of the willing have become more important, she added.
Mining out, money in
Outside the formal negotiations, the summit was marked by a focus on the strongly Mongolian issues of the role played by pastoralists and rangelands like grasslands, as well as mining, in both degrading and restoring land.
Part of the conference was sponsored by Australian mining company Rio Tinto and its local partner Oyu Tolgoi. Their presence was protested by campaigners wearing T-shirts calling on the companies to “stop wasting drinking water” and to “get out of Mongolia”.
The UNCDD and others praised the success of the summit in raising more finance for land restoration. The COP saw institutions like the Asian Development Bank and Global Environment Facility pledge money to combat land degradation, with the UNCCD estimating that $645 million of new commitments were made.
An estimated $355 billion a year is needed through 2030 to meet global land restoration commitments, compared with around $77 billion currently invested. Private finance accounts for only around 6% of global investment, according to the UNCCD.
UNCCD chief scientist Baron Orr told a press conference that many of the announcements were public-private partnerships that use government money to “even the playing field” for companies that want to protect land, in a bid to ensure they are not disadvantaged compared with those that do not.
Such partnerships are a “huge opportunity”, he said, especially as “we’re not in a moment of public finance – public finance is tight in every country.”
The post Despite African walkout, fractious land COP ends without drought deal appeared first on Climate Home News.
Despite African walkout, fractious land COP ends without drought deal
Burdened by rising fuel import costs and an “ocean crisis” of record-breaking heat, Pacific island nations are seeking to build support for a new regional fund ahead of COP31, intended to channel investment into renewable energy, community resilience and ocean protection, experts said.
Leaders from the 18-member Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), including Australia and New Zealand, are expected to issue a call for global pledges to the Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF) at a high-level meeting this coming week in Palau, seeking to build a new model for financing climate action.
The new regional fund was formally launched in May this year and is meant to “serve communities at a community level”, swiftly channelling investments for their projects on the ground, according to Fiji’s assistant minister for foreign affairs, Lenora Qereqeretabua.
“We are expecting pledges for the PRF, and these funds will go to communities that apply,” she told journalists at an online briefing. “We have organised it in such a way that it makes our application processes much, much easier than applying for global funding.”
Qereqeretabua added that she expects that PRF funds will be “utilised by communities to protect themselves from climate change and the effects of climate change.”
The Pacific Islands Forum meeting is expected to shape the region’s priorities ahead of this year’s pre-COP, hosted by Fiji and Tuvalu, and COP31, which will be co-led by Australia and Türkiye.
At COP31, a dedicated session on the climate finance needs of small island states will seek to drive pledges into the PRF. The fund has so far received about $172 million in capital – with about $67 million coming from Australia – and aims to close the year with $500 million.
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Ocean heat and fossil fuel shocks
Leaders from the Pacific will meet in Palau from Sunday amid an “ocean crisis” of record-breaking ocean heat caused by this year’s “super El Niño”, according to Kevin Chand, Pacific ocean policy director at National Geographic’s Pristine Seas conservation project.
Leaders at the PIF are expected to put forward commitments towards new marine protected areas, which will be key for shielding ecosystems from future climate extremes, Chand said. The forum is expected to issue a statement on the need for ocean action at COP31, and announce commitments towards reaching the global goal of protecting 30% of the planet’s land and sea ecosystems by 2030.
Rising ocean heat could lead to food insecurity and lost government earnings in the region, as key fish stocks like tuna start migrating away from their coastline in search of colder waters, said Coral Pasisi, director of climate change and sustainability at the Pacific Community (SPC).
Climate shocks are deepening existing economic pressures, as Pacific nations have spent up to a quarter of their GDP on fossil fuel imports due to the war in Iran, according to a recent report by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia.
Wesley Morgan, one of the study’s authors, told journalists that partner nations “ought to be putting their money where their mouth is”, and should support the energy transition in the Pacific by covering the upfront costs of switching from polluting diesel to solar power, batteries and electricity grid upgrades.
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Given the increase in climate-related shocks and sea-level rise, the PIF should also mention the need to phase out fossil fuel extraction and consumption, said Sindra Sharma, international policy lead at the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN).
Last year’s COP30 failed to deliver a global roadmap on transitioning away from fossil fuels, which led to a group of countries – including several Pacific island nations – pursuing their own fossil fuel phase-out summit in Santa Marta, Colombia. Next year’s conference will be hosted by Tuvalu and co-chaired by Ireland, which should also receive backing from the PIF, Sharma said.
Both the chairs of the Santa Marta coalition and the Australian COP31 co-presidency have vowed to continue a push for this topic to be discussed at COP31.
New fund to test allies
As local communities in the Pacific struggle to access global climate funds, the PRF’s planned model for quick, direct disbursements has “very solid and good” intentions, Sharma said, but it will need political and financial backing from donor countries.
“The proof is going to be when the fund actually starts operating and delivering to communities,” she added. “If there is too much bureaucracy in being able to access the funds, for example. These things will have to be scrutinised.”
The facility aims to deliver funds in two categories: one for climate adaptation and “disaster resilience”, and another for social and community resilience that includes areas like community capacity-building, education, data analytics and financial management, among others. It will launch its first call for proposals at the PIF.
Morgan added that Australia will need to “leverage global interests” so that funding is directed to the Pacific Resilience Facility “or else the Pacific won’t be able to trust Australia as a partner”. The country ratified the PRF treaty in May, triggering its entry into force.
“The perception [of Australia] in the region is genuinely divided, and it’s worth being honest about it,” Sharma said, adding that the pre-COP31 in Fiji, which is usually limited to a technical space for negotiations, will determine how meaningful Australia’s advocacy for the Pacific can be.
This time, Pacific nations want to use the pre-COP in early October as an opportunity to demonstrate the challenges their largely low-lying islands face and to advocate for their political priorities, including a renewed global effort to limit global warming to 1.5C by cutting emissions faster and deeper. World leaders are due to visit Tuvalu to experience the frontline of rising sea levels, although Australia and Fiji have yet to confirm who will attend.
“In Bonn, Australia was largely missing on the negotiated outcomes that we so urgently need to see. It’s not enough to get Pacific priorities on the agenda. Agenda placement is not delivery,” Sharma added.
The post Pacific islands seek backing for new regional fund ahead of COP31 appeared first on Climate Home News.
Pacific islands seek backing for new regional fund ahead of COP31
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