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UNFCCC COP-30 – India and Climate Change in 2025
By Sonali Priyamvada Chitre, Esquire
November 5, 2025
INTRODUCTION
Climate change has already happened. So has globalization. It is time to forget the artificial need for national sovereignty and come together in union – to solve the mother of all collective action problems.
The United States (U.S.), the globe’s second largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter, should provide climate technology and climate finance to India. India’s goals are admirable. Its current trajectory is not acceptable. India, still a developing country despite being a vast marketplace and having a robust economy, still lacks the ability to achieve the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. India will need bilateral U.S. help to stop the global climate crisis. In fact, millions of Indias have come to the United States to build new lives, becoming non-resident Indians (NRIs). The concept of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR), the linchpin of the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, must be actualized.
I. A SUCCESSFUL NRI
Women and minorities deserve a seat at the negotiating table. My own mother, Dr. Neelam Gupta Ph.D. was a physicist specializing in optics, hyper-spectral imaging in particular. She was a pioneer in acousto-optic tunable filters (AOTF). For 41 years, Dr. Gupta worked as a research physicist at the United States Department of Defense (DOD) Army Research Laboratory (ARL) in Adelphi, Maryland, securing numerous patents and publishing more than 100 scientific papers. Her groundbreaking innovations in cameras, night vision, and lasers led to saving millions of lives. She collaborated with top scientists all over the world and traveled to Russia and Poland to work with other physicists.
Dr. Gupta was born November 12, 1947, in Narsingpur, Madhya Pradesh, India, to Biharilal Gupta, a superintendent of schools, and Sitadevi Gupta, a homemaker. She died September 11, 2025 in a fire at her home in Bethesda, Maryland.
She was one of seven children: Camala (deceased), Vimala (deceased), Santosh, Muni (deceased), Shakun, and Shekar (deceased). She is survived by her husband, Dr. Dattakumar (Prakash) Madhusudan Chitre, and daughters, Sonali Priyamvada Chitre and Dr. Geetali Priyanka Chitre.
An exceptional student, she ranked 10th in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India, on her high school board examinations, excelling in Hindi, Sanskrit, mathematics, and physics. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Sagar University, where she received a gold medal for academic achievement, and later completed a master’s degree in physics at Benares Hindu University (BHU).
Dr. Gupta came to the United States in 1970 to pursue a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Maryland, College Park. There, she met Prakash Chitre, a fellow student in the department. Dr. Prakash Chitre also holds a Ph.D. in physics and currently works at ViaSat Corp. in Germantown, Maryland. The two married on February 20, 1973, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Dr. Gupta and her husband moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where their children were born and raised. The couple moved to Bethesda, Maryland in 1997.
Dr. Gupta was a Board of Director of the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF), founded by Dr. Vinod Prakash.[1]This U.S. based not for profit raises money from the Indian diaspora for charitable projects in India, particularly focused on climate disasters and resiliency building. Dr. Gupta enjoyed reading fiction and biographies, exercising, fashion design, and traveling the world. She enjoyed long walks on the beach, hiking, cooking gourmet meals, gardening, knitting, sudoku puzzles, and black and white films. She was a generous, brilliant, passionate woman with a zest for life.
II. INDIA’S NATIONALLY DETERMINED CONTRIBUTION (NDC)
India has already reached its 2030 NDC target of achieving 50% of its installed electricity capacity from non-fossil fuel sources, five years ahead of schedule. The updated NDC, submitted in August 2022, also committed India to reducing the emissions intensity of its GDP by 45% by 2030 (from 2005 levels) and reaching net-zero emissions by 2070.[2]
With significant progress in renewable energy capacity installation—ranking fourth in the world in 2024 in cumulative capacity—and comprehensive policy measures, India has reached a turning point in its power sector, with non-fossil sources supplying the majority of new electricity generation in 2024–25 for the first time. But reliance on coal power continues to be a drag on ambition. In addition to building substantial new coal power capacity, the government is pushing for increased domestic coal production and utilization of existing thermal power plants.[3]
India’s updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) for 2030 includes three main climate targets: (1) reducing its GDP’s emissions intensity by 45% from 2005 levels, (2) achieving 50% of its total power capacity from non-fossil fuel sources, and (3) creating an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent through forest and tree cover. These updated targets were submitted in August 2022 and represent a step towards the long-term goal of net-zero emissions by 2070.
III. CLIMATE FINANCE
Finance Ministers invited by the Brazilian presidency to the COP-30 Circle of Finance Ministers, met in Washington D.C., on October 15, 2025.[4] They discussed the extremely urgent issue of how to scale up climate finance. The implementation of scaling up from what was agreed at COP-29 in Baku to the COP-30 Belem’s ambitious goal of mobilizing at least USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035 will need all actors from public and private sources for climate action to work in a very coordinated way. Even though the initiative by Brazilian COP-30.[5]
Presidency and its outcome are not part of the UNFCCC framework or negotiations, the Brazilian Ministry of Finance through the Circle´s engagement and mobilization effort will have a significant impact as the ministries of finance have, both in their domestic and international agendas, a crucial role to play for the implementation of climate ambitions.
The report of COP-30 Circle of Finance Ministers on the Baku to Belém Roadmap for USD 1.3 Trillionwas the result of several months of interactions with ministries of finance technical teams, international organizations, partners in the academia, the private sector, and civil society. The Report covers critical issues on climate finance under five priorities proposed by Brazil:
(1) Scaling Up Concessional Finance – no increase in debt for the developing countries and Optimizing Climate Funds;
(2) Reforming Multilateral Development Banks to Scale up Sustainable Finance;
(3) Boosting Domestic Capacity and Investment Frameworks for Climate Finance, including Country Platforms;
(4) Developing Scalable and Innovative Financial Solutions for Private Capital Mobilization;
(5) Strengthening Regulatory Approaches for Climate Finance.
The Report includes non-consensual views and its content does not express agreed upon language with regard to negotiation positions and outcomes, and not all consulted countries support each of its recommendations.
As the cost of inaction on climate change rises, it disproportionately exposes the world’s most vulnerable populations—especially the Small Island Developing States (SIDS)[6], who have contributed the least to historical emissions—to escalating climate risks, highlighting the inequities embedded in climate change. Every year of delayed climate action raises both the investment needed and the risks faced. Urgent and coordinated action is indispensable to safeguard lives, livelihoods, and sustainable growth in a just and inclusive manner.
The report reaffirms the determination to make financial flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development, and to promote climate finance as one of the cornerstones of the global response to climate change, in line with the principles and provisions of the Paris Agreement and in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty.
Mobilizing finance at the necessary scale demands structured and sustained efforts across public and private channels, bilateral and multilateral sources, and international and domestic frameworks, including catalytic capital and innovative financial solutions, sources and instruments of finance, as appropriate. Enhanced international cooperation, sound fiscal and regulatory policies, as nationally determined, and deeper private sector engagement are necessary to transform ambition into delivery by action in the coming years.
Both public and private finance will be essential to meet climate investment and finance needs. Concessional finance must be deployed more effectively, particularly in support of developing countries’ updated nationally determined contributions, mitigation and adaptation, nature, and for responding to loss and damage associated with the impacts of climate change. At the same time, multilateral development banks, multilateral climate and environmental funds, and other international financial institutions are encouraged to continue ongoing efforts to enhance their cooperation and coordination, as appropriate, to implement reforms to strengthen their capacity, complementarity, effectiveness and deliver results with greater speed, scale and impact, while recognizing their unique mandates and governance structures.
Strengthening domestic climate policy and investment frameworks, including country-driven and country-led initiatives such as voluntary country platforms, is important to attract sustainable investments and channel resources where they are most needed. To fulfill that goal, it is critical to enhance the availability and quality of climate-related data, ensuring the adequacy of risk assessment methodologies to support the implementation of NDCs and NAPs. Greater interoperability of taxonomies and the progressive convergence towards high-integrity carbon markets are positive elements to accelerate flows, reduce costs, and scale up mitigation and adaptation actions in the global climate finance architecture.
CONCLUSION
My own family, so recently affected by the tragic and accidental death of my mother Dr. Neelam Gupta is but one more Indian life taken away. We cannot discount the value of future lives to present value for ethical reasons because we have a fiduciary duty to preserve the Earth’s resources for the next generations. Elon Musk and President Donald Trump have accelerated the pace of progress technologically in the U.S. India can benefit greatly by technology transfer for climate mitigation, adaptation, and reversal.
In preparation for COP-30, the following countries[7] committed to continue to work together in a spirit of partnership and shared purpose to advance practical solutions that accelerate the flow of climate finance, promote sustainable development and poverty eradication, and build a resilient and inclusive future for all.
REFERENCES
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/author/37363910000
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA324038.pdf
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16292960/
https://www.photonics.com/Articles/UTA_and_ARL_to_Develop_Longwave-IR_Photonic/a64855
https://www.oas.org/en/media_center/photonews.asp?sCodigo=FNE-96755
[1] https://www.idrf.org/
[2] https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/NDC/2022-08/India%20Updated%20First%20Nationally%20Determined%20Contrib.pdf
[3] https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/india/
[4] https://cop30.br/en/news-about-cop30/report-of-the-cop30-circle-of-finance-ministers-launched-during-imf-and-world-bank-meetings
[5] Id.
[6] Ms. Chitre served as the Legal Adviser to the Republic of Fiji at the United Nations in 2011-12. She maintains a close relationship with the government and will be visiting Fiji to get a scuba diving certification in 2026.
[7] Azerbaijan, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Republic of Korea, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Tanzania, Türkiye, United Arab Emirates, Uganda, the United Kingdom.
Jan, 10, 2026
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