India gears up for COP30 as Bhupender Yadav heads to Brazil
COP30 is being held against a complex geopolitical backdrop, with the US withdrawing from Paris Agreement
In the run-up to the annual climate meeting, disagreements over climate finance, the pace and responsibility for the energy transition and burdens on developing countries remain sharp
New Delhi: Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav will attend the pre-COP meeting in Brasília on October 13 and 14 as India steps up preparations for the UN climate summit COP30, which will be held in Belém, Brazil, in November.
The minister confirmed his travel on his X account. The two-day pre-COP brings together environment and climate ministers, senior negotiators and observers to narrow differences on politically sensitive topics and try to build ministerial consensus ahead of the UN climate conference in Belem.
The COP30 presidency earlier said that the Brasília meeting is expected to host between 30 and 50 delegations and roughly 800 participants. Ministers use pre-COPs to test negotiating text, identify shared ground on sensitive matters and prepare ministerial positions so that negotiations at the main COP can advance faster.
Pre-COPs are not formal UNFCCC events but have become routine host-country instruments to focus ministerial attention on a short list of political questions that negotiators otherwise take weeks to resolve.
COP30 is taking place against a complex geopolitical backdrop, with the United States withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and several developed countries reassessing their climate strategies amid economic and energy security pressures. In the run-up to the annual climate meeting, disagreements over climate finance, the pace and responsibility for the energy transition and burdens on developing countries remain sharp. Trust between developed and developing countries remains weak after COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, where many in the Global South said the finance outcome fell short of needs and expectations. At the core of this divide are disagreements over the scale and nature of climate finance, whether it should be provided as grants or loans and how predictable and usable new funds will be for adaptation and loss and damage. These finance tensions are central to what delegates will debate in Brasília and later in Belém.
