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Climate change: global negotiations
The climate talks now turn on two questions of money rather than of targets: who pays for harm that has already happened, and whether one bloc may price carbon at another's border. Nepal's August flood put the first question to India, which found its own argument of historical responsibility aimed back at it. The European Union's carbon border levy puts the second to every developing exporter, and BRICS, the eleven country group named for Brazil, Russia, India and China, spent August and September hardening a common answer: the levy is one bloc's rule imposed on everyone, and fossil fuels will keep a role in developing economies for some time yet.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2025: BRICS summits and membership
- Prelims 2025: Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and carbon markets
- Prelims 2023: carbon markets as a tool against climate change
- Prelims 2014: BRICS summits and membership
The framework the talks sit inside
- The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), agreed in 1992, is the treaty countries negotiate under, and its Conference of the Parties (COP) is the annual meeting that takes the decisions.
- Common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, set in that 1992 convention, is the principle every developing country argument returns to.
- The Paris Agreement of 2015 replaced assigned targets with nationally determined contributions, which each country sets for itself and is expected to revise upwards over time.
Loss and damage, decision by decision
2013
COP19 in Warsaw sets up the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage.
2015
Article 8 of the Paris Agreement recognises averting, minimising and addressing loss and damage.
2019
COP25 creates the Santiago Network to give technical help to vulnerable countries.
2022
COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh agrees to set up a fund for loss and damage.
2023
COP28 in Dubai operationalises the fund, hosted for now by the World Bank.
What the fund can actually pay
About $822 millionPledged to the fund so far
$5 to 20 millionCap on each grant in the pilot phase
$4.78 billionNepal's bill for rebuilding after one flood
- Contributions are voluntary, and the United States has pulled out.
- The decision adopting the Paris Agreement says Article 8 creates no basis for liability or compensation, which keeps the fund charity rather than damages.
Who owes whom
- The developing country case is that developed countries lead on mitigation, finance and technology, because they emitted most and can do most.
- Nepal produces about 0.1 per cent of global emissions, which is the ground on which it claims from larger emitters.
- India's per capita emissions are about half the global average, which is the ground on which India answers.
- The argument therefore runs in both directions, because a country can be a large emitter in total and a small one per head.
The carbon border charge, and the objection to it
The case for
- A carbon price inside the bloc raises costs there, and cheaper imports would otherwise undercut it
- The charge is meant to prevent carbon leakage
The case against
- It is set by one bloc rather than agreed under the United Nations climate process
- It cuts across common but differentiated responsibilities
- Developing exporters, India among them, call it a trade barrier
- The European Union's mechanism covers iron and steel, aluminium, cement, fertilisers, electricity and hydrogen, and entered its definitive phase in January 2026.
- Iron and steel are about 90 per cent of India's exports to the European Union that the mechanism covers.
- The climate logic holds; the objection is to who wrote the rule and who pays.
BRICS as a negotiating bloc
- South Africa joined the four founders in 2010, and expansions in 2024 and 2025 took the group to eleven members, Indonesia the latest.
- It speaks as a Global South voice, so its declarations read as a developing country position on climate and on trade together.
- India held the chairship in 2026 and hosted the leaders' summit in New Delhi.
What has happened
12 Sep 2026
BRICS leaders adopted the New Delhi Declaration at the 18th summit, lifting the ministers' positions into a heads of government text.
- It calls carbon border measures unilateral, punitive and discriminatory, resting its climate stand on CBDR-RC.
- It accepts a continuing role for fossil fuels in developing economies, asking instead for just, orderly, equitable and inclusive transitions.
- It launches a BRICS Carbon Markets Partnership and backs Ethiopia's COP32 presidency.
PIB, 12 Sep 2026: BRICS New Delhi Declaration: Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability (opens in a new tab) · The Indian Express, 13 Sep 2026: Need 'orderly & inclusive' energy transition, fossil fuels will continue playing key role: BRICS declaration (opens in a new tab)
2 Sep 2026
Nepal asked major emitters to compensate it after the 26 August disaster.
- Nepal's Foreign Minister named China, the United States and India, and Nepal wrote to the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage.
- The minister later denied that compensation had been sought.
- India replied that climate change is a common challenge rather than one country's bill.
The Hindu, 5 Sep 2026 · The Indian Express, 9 Sep 2026: Expert Explains | How floods triggered Nepal's demand for compensation (opens in a new tab)
19 Aug 2026
BRICS environment ministers, meeting on 18 August, adopted four outcome documents and made opposition to carbon border measures a formal position of the bloc.
- They urged developed countries to triple adaptation finance for developing countries by 2035.
PIB, 17 Aug 2026: BRICS Environment Ministers adopt four outcome documents (opens in a new tab) · The Hindu, 19 Aug 2026: BRICS environment ministers oppose EU carbon border tax (opens in a new tab)