New Delhi: India’s environment minister on Wednesday called for a sharp acceleration in global climate action, urging countries to triple renewable energy capacity and increase adaptation finance.
Addressing the silver jubilee edition of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSDS) 2026 organized by The Energy and Resources Institute (Teri), Union Minister Bhupendra Yadav said the country must step up efforts to combat climate change by expanding solar and wind power and doubling energy efficiency in industry, transport and households.
The minister said adaptation finance – money used to help countries cope with climate impacts such as floods and droughts – must be increased to match the funds allocated to reducing emissions.
He also urged reforms in multilateral development banks to free up trillions of dollars in climate finance, stressing that ambition and finance must go together through transparent, predictable and inclusive financial systems.
Yadav reiterated India’s goals of achieving 500 GW of non-fossil fuel power capacity by 2030, reducing GDP emissions intensity by 45% from 2005 levels and achieving net zero by 2070.
Warning that the world is not on track to limit warming to 1.5°C under the Paris Agreement, he said: “Emissions reductions are still insufficient, adaptation finance is still insufficient, implementation of the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) is uneven. This is not a crisis of science. It is a crisis of scale, speed and systematic transformation of compliance; so we need to move beyond incremental policy refinement.”
He emphasized that the coming decade must focus on delivery. “We need to move from promises to performance. From goals to trajectories. From ambition to accountability.”
Experts stressed that climate change should not remain confined to conferences or elite discussions.
“It is time to act, it is important that we democratize the language of climate change, it is not something that has to be confined to conferences, to discussions in drawing rooms, to boardrooms, it has to go to the masses, they have to understand how it affects them and then we have to work on solutions that are rooted in the local context with the same emphasis on adaptation as we put on mitigation, Tata Sharsdharth, Trust
