The COP illusion: Why India needs to lead the Global South axis at COP31

As COP31 approaches, the Global South must move beyond rhetoric and demand climate finance without debt, affordable green technology and accountability for historical emissions. India should lead a united front to make climate action equitable, practical and binding

For more than three decades, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) has played out as a grand annual theatre. Tens of thousands of diplomats, corporate and NGO lobbyists, and private jet travellers gather under the guise of saving the planet, only to deliver sanitised communiqués, non-binding targets, and creative accounting. As COP31 approaches in Antalya, Turkey, from 10 November to 20 November 2026, the rhetoric from the developed world will predictably continue. But for the countries of the Global South, the illusion shattered long ago, and this COP may be expected to end on similar lines.

The reality is staring humanity in the face. The developed West built its wealth on two centuries of unbridled fossil fuel consumption, exporting the environmental invoice to the Global South. When there is a need to atone for the past, the industrialised world offers carbon markets, debt-inducing loans, and empty promises instead of actual compensation. If COP31 is to be anything more than another expensive jamboree, the Global South must stop flirting or engaging in gamesmanship in negotiations and should bargain in a straightforward manner. The time has come to forge a defiant South-South bloc - led by nations like India, Brazil, and South Africa - to rewrite the terms of global climate governance. China should be invited to join the group.

The primary agenda of COP31 should not be setting distant net-zero targets for 2050 or debating draft texts, but pledging a unified approach for the welfare of humanity by shedding the hypocrisy. It must be a direct confrontation with the systemic failures of the Western-led climate framework. The developed world consistently boasts about mobilising billions for climate finance, but a closer look reveals that it is nothing but bait. Over 70 per cent of public climate finance provided to developing nations comes in the form of loans, not grants. The West is essentially telling countries suffering from floods, droughts, and heatwaves: "We polluted the atmosphere to get rich; now you must borrow money from our banks at market rates to clean up our mess."

COP31 must mandate that climate finance consist strictly of non-debt-creating grants and low-interest concessions, explicitly categorised as reparations for historic ecological damage, not charitable aid. The recent catastrophic floods and glacier melt in Tibet, Nepal and India have killed thousands of people and destroyed property and infrastructure worth billions. These events have clearly demonstrated that the innocent people bearing the maximum brunt of climate-related disasters are those who historically had no role at all in damaging the climate.

Further, developed economies are continuing to use sophisticated trade barriers to protect their own industries while penalising developing nations. Mechanisms like Europe's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), from the point of view of the developing world, are highly controversial and tantamount to green protectionism. It violates the UNFCCC's cardinal principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities, conveniently ignoring historical emissions and per-capita footprints and penalising the South for industrialising late and working for the livelihoods of its population.

The West preaches rapid decarbonisation while locking vital technologies behind stringent intellectual property rights (IPR). If climate change is an existential crisis for humanity, high-efficiency solar cells, advanced grid storage, and green hydrogen technology cannot remain the sole property of any country, much less developed countries. COP31 must devise a framework for the rapid, low-cost transfer of green technology to developing countries, as is done during global health emergencies.

While the bureaucracies may engage in negotiations, concrete action must happen at ground level. Climate amelioration requires micro-targeted planning for both urban and rural ecosystems. For example, modern cities operate as artificial heat traps, as concrete and asphalt exacerbate urban heat island effects and cause flash floods. Cities must incorporate permeable pavements, bioswales (landscaped channels planted with vegetation, as in Agartala city), urban wetlands, and subterranean retention tanks. The city of Wuhan, China, transformed from a flood-prone metropolis into a Sponge City model by converting 38 square kilometres of land into urban rain gardens, parks, and permeable roads, drastically reducing runoff and cooling local air temperatures by up to 1.5°C. Indian planners must devise a similar plan of action for major cities.

Already, Ahmedabad has demonstrated that low-cost, lime-based, high-albedo paint on rooftops reduces indoor temperatures by 2°C to 5°C, saving energy and lives during severe heatwaves. Municipal codes must mandate green roofs, solar canopies, and mandatory tree canopy cover percentages on all urban thoroughfares. Urban planning in the Indian scenario must improve its public transport system so that people have faith in it and vehicular pollution is reduced.

For better adaptation and mitigation, landscape restoration and climate-resilient agricultural practices must focus on ecosystem restoration and soil-water conservation. In this regard, several examples of India's micro-level ridge-to-valley watershed treatment, which recharges groundwater tables and prevents soil erosion, should be replicated as a priority. Further, rural development planning must incentivise multi-layered cropping systems, integrating nitrogen-fixing trees with drought-tolerant crops (e.g., millets like sorghum and pearl millet).

This enhances carbon sequestration, preserves topsoil, and stabilises farm incomes during extreme weather events. There is also a need to extend the Rooftop Prime Minister's Solar Energy Scheme to create further decentralised renewable mini-grids. In rural planning, wherever possible, we should decentralise energy production via agrivoltaics - placing solar panels above cropland - allowing farmers to generate energy while growing shade-tolerant crops beneath. This writer has always been arguing for adopting a climate-resilient lifestyle at the individual and family level because government policies remain abstract without individual and household compliance.

As a fast-growing economy striving to lift millions out of poverty while deploying renewable energy at a historic scale, India carries the weight and moral authority to lead the Global South. Indian negotiators at COP31 must adopt an aggressive, uncompromising strategy. Negotiators should demand that any revenues collected by Western nations through unilateral green tariffs be automatically redirected into the UNFCCC Loss and Damage Fund to compensate developing countries.

The developed world frequently attempts to reset the clock, treating emissions from recent decades as the primary benchmark. Indian negotiators must bring the core metric back to cumulative historical emissions from 1850 to the present day. Western nations have consumed more than 70 per cent of the global carbon budget while housing less than 20 per cent of the world's population.

South-South technology partnerships should be the core agenda. Building on initiatives like the International Solar Alliance (ISA), Indian negotiators should propose a Global South Green Tech Consortium. This body would facilitate open-source sharing of renewable innovations, joint manufacturing of clean-energy components, and direct climate-resilient agricultural and knowledge transfer across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

The annual UN climate summit will remain a hollow exercise as long as the world's primary polluters write the rules and shirk their responsibilities. The Global South can no longer afford to wait for Western altruism that will never arrive.

COP31 must be the moment for taking a unified, decisive stance by ensuring a South-South strategy, and Indian negotiators can help transform COP from an elite talk shop into a genuine roadmap for global climate justice.

COP31 must mandate that climate finance consist strictly of non-debt-creating grants and low-interest concessions, explicitly categorised as reparations for historic ecological damage, not charitable aid. The recent catastrophic floods and glacier melt in Tibet, Nepal and India have killed thousands of people and destroyed property and infrastructure worth billions

The writer is a former IFS officer and Chairman of the Centre for Resource Management; Views presented are personal.