The Conference of the Parties (COP) in Antalya is just few days away. Yet today, climate diplomacy has become synonymous with broken promises, deepening distrust in the concept itself.
Every year targets are set, and applause is made, but hardly anything materialises after that. Ten years after the Paris Agreement, there is no shortage of promises and declarations, but hardly any confidence that those promises will translate into measurable action.
This year, the COP31 has deliberately put implementation at the centre of the agenda. The Türkiye-Australia presidency has put “concrete, measurable and implementation-oriented outcomes” at the centre of the process, alongside a renewed emphasis on confidence in multilateral climate action.
The question, therefore, is increasingly straightforward: what has each country promised, what has it delivered, and what remains to be done? India offers an important test case in this conversation.
India is the only G20 nation to have achieved its Paris-era climate commitments ahead of schedule. In June 2025, India crossed 50% of its installed electricity capacity from non-fossil sources, five years ahead of its 2030 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) 2.0 target.
Its emission intensity of GDP had fallen by around 37.38% between 2005 and 2022, surpassing its original target of 33-35%. Additionally, it achieved nearly 98% of its 2.5 billion tonnes carbon sink target for 2030 set under the Paris Agreement.
Driven by this strong progress, India recently raised its 2031-35 ambition in the NDC 3.0 framework, targeting 60% non-fossil installed electricity capacity, a 47% reduction in emission intensity and an expanded additional carbon sink of 3.5-4 billion tonnes CO2eq by 2035. This feat is significant as it has occurred alongside continued economic growth averaging around 7.0% during the last decade, making it one of the fastest-growing major economies.
India continues to grow economically, and its energy demand is also increasing year-on-year. Its transition is therefore not the same as decarbonising an already industrialised economy with much higher historical and per-capita energy consumption.
If we dig deeper and compare the development alongside the emissions profile, this story becomes more revealing. In terms of absolute emissions, while India is one of the world’s largest absolute emitters, this metric offers only half the story without the context of its low per capita footprint and limited historical contribution to global warming.
In 2024, India accounted for roughly 8% of global CO2 emissions, compared with around 29% for China and 12% for the United States. However, India’s per-capita CO2 emissions were about only 2.2 tonnes, which is less than half of the global average.
This is roughly one-sixth of the US level of 13.6 tonnes, one-fourth of China’s, one-third of Japan’s and Germany’s, and one-seventh of Canada’s and Australia’s levels. This distinction completes the story and offers realism.There is another reason India’s performance deserves attention. The period since the Paris Agreement has been tumultuous. COVID-19 disrupted economies and supply chains.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict and, more recently, the Strait of Hormuz crisis triggered an energy and food security shock, pushing up fuel prices and forcing energy-importing economies to reassess their security of supply chains. India has had to navigate its decarbonisation goals amidst all these disruptions. India has had to navigate its decarbonisation goals amidst all these disruptions, while ensuring development without disruption.
This also explains the practicality of India’s transition pathway. Wherever technically and economically feasible, electrification enables energy access, while the electricity system itself progressively decarbonises.
At the same time, sectors where energy-dense molecules remain difficult to replace require alternatives such as hydrogen, biogas and biofuels. The objective is not to create a binary contest between fossil and non-fossil energy, but to reduce emissions while maintaining a reliable and affordable energy system, essential for sustained economic growth.
Developing economies cannot simply reproduce the historical energy pathway of today’s developed economies, but neither can they postpone decarbonisation indefinitely.
The practical question is how development and decarbonisation can be achieved simultaneously.This is the point where the climate trust deficit becomes particularly important. The Global South has repeatedly been asked to raise ambition and accelerate its transition away from fossil fuels.
Its response has often been that ambition cannot be separated from historical responsibility, development needs, finance and technological capacity. Meanwhile, many developed economies have struggled to maintain the pace of emissions reductions implied by their targets.
A G20 Biennial Transparency Report found that only five of the 14 G20 members assessed were trending positively towards their 2030 targets, while others, including the US, EU and UK, need to accelerate their recent pace of emissions reduction.Therefore, to form a more constructive basis for climate diplomacy, it’s important to form a standard principle.
One that accounts for the credibility gap between what a country promises and what it delivers, assessed alongside historical responsibility, capability and development needs.
In Antalya, India can contribute to this conversation by demonstrating how decarbonisation can advance alongside economic growth and rising energy demand, even amidst external shocks and geopolitical uncertainties.India also brings a broader conception of sustainability to the conversation. Ideas of restraint, resilience, interdependence and responsibility towards nature have deep roots in the Indic systems.
These traditions cannot substitute for emissions inventories, climate models or modern energy technologies. But they can complement them by framing sustainability not merely as a technological transition, but as a natural relationship between consumption, society, economy and nature. Mission LiFE reflects one contemporary expression of this idea.
For three decades, climate negotiations have repeatedly asked: How much more ambition can countries offer? The next phase must add another question: How much of what has already been promised has been delivered? The upcoming COP is thus a test of whether implementation can become the new currency of trust.
Dr Akanksha Jain is a Research Associate and Dr Debajit Palit is the Centre Head at Centre for Climate Change and Energy Transitions, Chintan Research Foundation