By Business India Editorial

Bhupender Yadav, Minister for Environment and Climate, has said that the wealthy nations have an obligation to fund climate change mitigations in developing and poor countries.

Yadav, who headed the Indian delegation at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, said that the rich countries have a ‘responsibility, duty and a vow’ to provide climate finance to developing countries, and they should deliver on an unfulfilled promise to raise $100 billion a year.

The minister said in an interview a couple of days before the summit ended on Saturday that the responsibility squarely falls on the developed countries, who are insisting on the developing countries to pledge emission cuts.

“I believe the biggest responsibility lies with the developed countries,” Yadav said. “Because if there is any gap that remains it is in the action for climate finance.”

The rich countries had failed to meet their promise to provide $100 billion each year in climate finance to poor nations as of 2020.

Currently, rich nations provide an estimated $80 billion annually, which poorer nations say isn’t enough to develop clean energy systems and to adapt to worsening climate shocks. India alone said it needs $2.5 trillion, in a 2019 finance ministry document.

“Climate finance isn’t charity,” Yadav said. “This is an obligation, responsibility, duty and a vow.”

He said helping the developing world cope with climate change is a call of conscience that “should be in the heart of every person. But especially in those who’ve a greater historical responsibility than others.”

The minister said India, a country with nearly 1.4 billion people or almost one-fifth of the global population and yet accounting for just five percent of its emissions, is among the few countries in the world on track to meet its climate targets before 2030.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who attended the opening of the UN summit, had announced 2070 as India’s target to be net-zero. But to achieve it, developing countries like India need financing.