This is part of The Quint’s COP30 coverage to help make sense of the crucial climate talks. Become a member to support us.
The 2015 Paris Agreement sped up climate action simply by letting go. Instead of prescribing targets for only the developed countries, it urged all countries to define their own nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
This laissez-faire approach, as compared to the top-down Kyoto Protocol model of 1997, cleverly democratised both effort and responsibilities. The French have long mastered the art of moulding public opinion by influence and sangfroid rather than coercion. That was witnessed at the Glasgow COP26, too, which proselytised “the end of coal”.
Global coal consumption, however, has continued to grow at 1.5 percent per year since 2021, the same as during the decade before Glasgow.
Paris determined the right path for responsible multilateralism, just as the Kyoto Protocol determined the right principle—differentiated responsibilities per varying fiscal capacity, a more palatable formula than the simplistic “polluter pays” principle, which is backward-looking and not dynamic enough to balance present and future benefits with costs.
So, two decades down the road, is the world better prepared to deal with climate change?
Reading the Numbers: NDCs
Two indicators illustrate that there is greater resolve as the first end point of net zero emissions approaches between 2040 and 2050 for the most developed economies.
First, the synthesis report for COP30, diligently produced by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat and released this week, shows that per the information submitted by 64 countries that submitted their NDCs by 30 September, carbon emissions till 2035 will decline by 13 GT.
This is six percent below the previously projected levels till 2030. The caveat is that the additional reduction will only be achieved by 2035—so this is a promise of greater reduction but later than before.
Projected emissions by 2035 are 17 percent below the levels projected in 2019 so that is progress.
Second, budgeting for climate resilience is becoming increasingly sophisticated as are mechanisms to monitor, verify, and report compliance. Adoption of an all-of-economy approach now integrates gender equity, health considerations, and just transition principles across technology development, transfer of innovation, and carbon financing.
The submitted NDCs comprise less than one-third of the total due. Of these, only two-thirds mention a financing cost evaluated for mitigation of $1.3 trillion and for adaptation of $0.6 trillion. Energy, forest management, land-use regulations and stabilisation, industrial processes and products and waste management are the sectors dominant in mitigation strategies. Finance for adaptation is for Artificial Intelligence, geospatial tools, digital solutions, and climate monitoring and observations.
Sadly, the urgency displayed by these 64 countries is not matched by the two set of countries that are most relevant for decarbonisation.
The first group is the set of 50 highest producers of carbon by volume, which account for about 93 percent of the total global carbon emission. Only 11 of these, including Russia, Japan, Canada, Australia, the UK, Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Venezuela, Columbia, and Chile, have submitted their NDCs for 2025. Of these, Russia is the fourth largest emitter after China, the US, and India.
The second group, which is even more non-compliant though less relevant, is the 50 highest emitters of carbon on a per capita basis, accounting for 25-30 percent of global emissions. Of these, only seven submitted their NDCs on time, including Australia (ranked tenth), Canada, Russia, Japan, Singapore, the UK, and Malaysia.
A Weakening Resolve?
What does this lackadaisical approach to submission of agreed reports say about the process adopted?
Complexity, heterogeneity in the number of metrics adopted, and continued low statistical country capacity could account for some of the delay.
More worryingly, it might signal a weakening resolve to abide by the cumbersome multilateral process, subsequent to the US (historically the largest emitter of carbon and presently the second largest emitter after China) torpedoing the edifice of multilateralism. Greater involvement of the private sector and subnational jurisdictions like cities, if national resolve has waned, is one option.
But private management of the commons requires well-defined and coordinated incentives. Working in clusters with a lead player—like Japan was for East Asia in the “flying Geese” model of the 1960s—is an option.
The withdrawal of the US from the COP process opens the door for China to lead a coordinated plan for decarbonisation—undergirded by preferential and guaranteed open access to critical minerals, metals, semiconductor, and chip technology. India has skills to offer in institutional development for equity and shared responsibility and low-cost technology development in agriculture, space applications, and digital services.
India could also co-lead mangrove resilience to benefit Congo, Tunisia, Nigeria, Brazil, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Bangladesh, alongside the Tropical Forest for Forever Facility proposed by Brazil—a $125 billion fund for compensating countries for preserving biodiversity.
Mangroves store four times the volume of carbon per hectare as compared to tropical forests. They also protect coastal areas from erosion and moderate the impact of climate change.
COP30 could become the inflection point for passing the baton of sustainable development to the developing world. Has an Afro-Asian century of climate resilience dawned, and will it spell more performance and less process?
(The author is a distinguished fellow Chintan Research Foundation and was previously in the IAS and the World Bank. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author's own. The Quint neither endorses them nor is responsible for them.)