India has set out its negotiating priorities for the upcoming United Nations climate conference, COP31, placing predictable climate finance, equitable transition and nationally determined action at the centre of its agenda. Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav outlined the country's position at a press conference in New Delhi on Tuesday, ahead of the conference scheduled to be held in Antalya, Türkiye, from November 9 to 20, 2026.
Climate finance will be a central negotiating issue at the conference, Mr Yadav said, with India seeking a formal decision to begin a Climate Finance Work Programme. That pathway was mooted at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, and India wants COP31 to operationalise it, turning broad commitments on finance into a structured process with clear outcomes.
Under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, finance provided by developed countries must be predictable, largely public and concessional, Mr Yadav stressed, and must not add to the debt burden of developing countries. That principle, he argued, is an obligation rather than a favour, and it should shape how the international community designs the next phase of climate finance.
Developing countries had sought at least 1 trillion to 1.3 trillion dollars annually in climate finance, India noted, arguing that the agreed target of 300 billion dollars a year by 2035 is grossly inadequate for the scale of the transition required.
Developed countries, while accepting the 300 billion dollar goal with themselves taking the lead in mobilising it, favour reaching the larger 1.3 trillion dollar figure through a combination of public and private finance, including contributions from multilateral development banks and voluntary contributors. Bridging that gap between a public, concessional core and a broader mobilisation figure will be one of the central tensions at Antalya.
India will also argue that indicators being developed under the Global Goal on Adaptation should remain voluntary and should not become conditions for accessing climate finance. The Global Goal on Adaptation, established under the Paris Agreement, seeks to strengthen countries' capacity to adapt to climate impacts and to assess progress towards that objective.
Mr Yadav said one success so far had been reducing the number of parameters under discussion from nearly a thousand to 59, a simplification that should make adaptation tracking more workable for developing countries.
Adaptation will remain a priority for India more broadly, alongside scaled-up adaptation finance. The country will highlight the linkage between adaptation in agriculture, food security and the livelihoods of small and marginal farmers, for whom changing rainfall patterns, heat and extreme weather directly affect incomes and food production. For India, adaptation is not an abstract negotiating item but a daily reality for millions of farming families.
India will also seek continuation of the Just Transition Work Programme, viewing just transition through the lens of climate justice, the right to development and affordable energy access. That programme seeks to reskill workers dependent on the fossil-fuel economy and steer them towards green jobs, ensuring that the shift to cleaner energy does not leave workers and communities behind.
India will support its continuation through a party-driven mechanism, rather than through imposed frameworks.
On mitigation, India will press for action and for the second Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement, a five-year assessment of countries' progress, to remain party-driven, facilitative and non-punitive.
It will oppose attempts to impose new, top-down mitigation targets on developing countries, arguing that such targets would undermine the nationally determined nature of climate pledges, under which each country sets its own contribution in light of its development needs and capabilities.
India is not inclined towards language suggesting fossil fuel cuts or phase-out or restrictions, officials said, because the country is already on a pathway to ramp up its share of renewable energy, increase forest cover and improve energy efficiency. That position reflects India's argument that its energy transition should be judged by its overall direction and by development outcomes, rather than by a single form of wording imposed in negotiations.
Technology transfer will be another major theme. India will emphasise that technology transfer is an obligation of developed countries and that barriers related to cost, intellectual property rights and trade must be addressed if developing countries are to adopt cleaner technologies at scale. Without affordable access to technology, officials argue, ambitious climate goals will remain out of reach for many countries in the Global South.
Carbon markets under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement will also be discussed, with India insisting that participation in such markets should remain voluntary.
Other major negotiating issues include mitigation, the second Global Stocktake, technology transfer and carbon markets, as well as the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage and the report of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, established to assist developing countries dealing with the economic and non-economic consequences of climate change.
The functioning of that loss and damage fund will come under scrutiny after devastating floods in Nepal on August 26, when an ice-and-rock avalanche in the Himalayas triggered a massive flood that killed at least 1,400 people and caused extensive damage to infrastructure.
Nepal's estimated recovery and reconstruction requirement stands at 4.7 billion dollars, while the fund has provisionally set aside 21.6 million dollars for the country, less than one per cent of its estimated requirements. India's stated priorities do not include a specific negotiating position on the Nepal allocation, but the episode underscores the wider demand for adequate and accessible finance to address climate-related losses.
India will coordinate its positions with the G-77 and China grouping, the Like-Minded Developing Countries grouping and BASIC, comprising Brazil, South Africa, India and China. It will also play a role in the mitigation negotiations, where it is a co-facilitator, giving it a direct part in shaping how those discussions proceed.
The decision-making process at COP31 will be significantly influenced by Australia, which is handling the negotiations process, and issues raised by Pacific Island states may therefore be significant. At COP30 in Belém, the Alliance of Small Island States pressed for urgent emissions cuts to keep the 1.5 degree Celsius warming limit within reach, framing it as an existential threat for countries threatened by rising sea levels, coastal erosion and increasingly severe cyclones.
India's engagements at COP31 will include LeadIT 3.0 with Sweden, in addition to high-level side events on coastal resilience, panels on the International Big Cat Alliance and forests. At the UN Convention to Combat Desertification's COP17 in Ulaanbaatar, India was elected chair of the Asia-Pacific Regional Group, and it has reiterated its commitment to restore more than 26 million hectares of land by 2030.
Taken together, India's agenda for Antalya is solution-oriented and centred on equity, practical implementation and the needs of the Global South, with capacity building, knowledge sharing and geography-specific solutions at its core.
Whether that agenda succeeds will depend on whether developed countries accept stronger, more predictable finance commitments and whether the conference can translate existing Paris Agreement commitments into action without imposing new burdens on developing nations.
(Reporting based on The Hindu and the Press Information Bureau.)