3 min readBrazilNov 20, 2025 05:35 AM IST
First published on: Nov 20, 2025 at 04:51 AM IST
As Brazil worked overtime to get everyone to agree on a ‘political’ package on some of the long-standing contentious issues, a number of countries stepped up pressure for a roadmap on an early phase-out of fossil fuels.
On host Brazil’s initiative, countries at the COP30 climate conference are working to finalise a separate ‘political’ agreement, taking on board some of the long-standing concerns of different countries, including those on provision of climate finance and trade-related unilateral measures, which India has been raising along with some others.
India’s Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav held a bilateral meeting with China’s Special Envoy on Climate Change, Liu Zhenmin, on Wednesday to coordinate their strategy on these issues.
Meanwhile, more than 80 countries, led by European nations and small island states, have been pushing for the inclusion of a roadmap on fossil fuel phase-out in this package.
“The EU supports the idea of inclusion for a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels. We are very particular about the ambition in reduction of emission. Even though, we don’t use the word ‘roadmap’ but we in Europe are very much sure about phasing out fossil fuels in the days to come since we plan to reduce our emission rate furthermore, by nine-percent by 2040,” EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told reporters on Wednesday.
A first draft of this ‘political’ agreement, a result of days of consultations facilitated by Brazil, had come out on Tuesday, listing options for addressing these contentious issues. It reflected the wide divergences in positions of different countries on these issues. A fresh draft is expected later Wednesday evening.
Among the four issues are two that India, along with many other developing countries, has been raising for the last one year.
One of them pertains to the full implementation of Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, which says developed nations “shall provide” financial resources to the developing nations for dealing with climate change.
The second issue that India, China and some other developing countries have been flagging relates to trade-related restrictive measures like the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) that puts tariffs on imported goods whose carbon footprint during manufacturing is more than what is allowed within the EU. India, China and others have been arguing that CBAM was a discriminatory trade practice disguised as climate action.
The other issues are mainly the concerns of the developed nations, who want to see enhanced mitigation actions in pursuance of the 1.5 degree Celsius target, and greater transparency in reporting of climate actions.
The writer is in Belem to cover COP30 as part of his fellowship on investigative journalism on climate reporting under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark
The other issues are mainly the concerns of the developed nations, who want to see enhanced mitigation actions in pursuance of the 1.5 degree Celsius target, and greater transparency in reporting of climate actions.
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