NEW DELHI: The UN's climate chief has backed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's argument that clean energy investment softened the blow of the global oil price shock on India, calling the remarks "very salient" and welcoming the proposed Green Energy Corridor.
Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, who is running the negotiations at COP31 in Antalya, Turkiye, said in a written interview that the world is in the middle of a fossil fuel cost crisis, with import bills driving inflation through economies. Clean energy, he said, protects countries "from the ruinous rollercoaster of fossil fuel dependency".
He described Modi's Green Energy Corridor announcement - aimed at strengthening grids and battery storage - as a major step forward that would pay dividends for India's people and economy. Modi, addressing the Bharat Renewable Energy Summit and Expo on November 2, had said India would have been hit harder than the rest of the world had it not spent the past decade building clean energy capacity.
The Turkish presidency of COP31 has proposed a global 35-by-35 electrification pledge. Stiell said up to 75 per cent of energy demand can be met by electrification with technology that already exists, and that the task now is speed of roll-out. He said efforts to triple adaptation finance by 2035 must accelerate, and that the Baku to Belem roadmap is essential to scaling finance to USD 1.3 trillion a year by 2035.
On the Himalayas, he said mountain communities and scientists have warned for years that the region is at great risk, and that the rejection of a joint Nepal-Bhutan proposal for a dedicated mountain agenda at this COP was a matter for the parties, not for him to pre-judge.
COP31, the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference is taking place from November 9 to 20, 2026 at the Antalya Expo Center in Antalya, Turkiye. Turkiye is hosting this year's conference with Murat Kurum, minister of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change serving as the president of COP31.
(With inputs from media reports)