Through all the confusion and chaos wreaked on the global economy with US tariffs and the wars still raging, one subject that missed global attention in 2025 is climate change. The fact that the COP30 Summit was held in November 2025 should have helped matters and concentrated minds, but apparently it was a disappointing conference.
The COP30 Summit held at Belem in Brazil was a non-starter right from the start, according to media reports. First, it was the massive protests held outside the venue – something that is known to take place at every COP summit – by the indigenous peoples of Brazil is what hogged media attention. Perhaps the fact that it was indigenous peoples is what attracted media attention, even though they were quite rightly protesting their rights being infringed. The only other incident from the conference that made the news was a fire that broke out in the venue!
The main issue that was not resolved and hardly discussed was the phasing out of fossil fuels. Once again it proved to be a contentious issue and an obstacle to making any progress. Although it was meant to take forward what was agreed upon at COP28 at Dubai, when countries around the world agreed, in principle, to phasing out fossil fuels, the exact mechanism and timelines was not decided. According to this article in The Guardian, the COP30 draft text omitted mention of fossil fuels phase-out roadmap, even though more than 80 countries at the Summit were calling for it. This is hardly surprising since oil producing and exporting countries will never want to lose out on their biggest source of income; this group of countries also includes the US now especially since Trump’s return to office with the “Drill, baby, drill!” refrain. In fact, it is worth pointing out that America didn’t even send a delegation to the COP30 Summit in Brazil.
At the same time, one is not sure how much to believe news reports since unprofessional PR agency idiots from India have hijacked media decades ago. What’s worse is that they are also involved with setting conference agendas, from WEF at Davos to COP30 and G20! This time, it was reported that Brazil had not even put phasing out of fossil fuels on the COP30 agenda; this, while it was also reported that Brazil under President Lula da Silva was taking the phasing out of fossil fuels to the G20 summit at Johannesburg in South Africa in order to push for it. Given PR agency idiot bosses’ single-minded and toxic agenda to do with wrecking and hijacking my career and life, they ought to be booted out of the industry!
Never mind the confusion on the reporting of the COP30 Summit, I would like to focus on an issue that I think is critical to the phasing out of fossil fuels. I think the more sensible way to approach the issue of fossil fuels is to address the root cause of it. We all know that dependence on fossil fuels continues because of large government subsidies to the industry and to consumers. All governments resort to it as a matter of economic policy, with poorer and developing countries totally dependent on these subsidies. Politicians find it convenient to use fuel subsidies to pander to their political constituencies, especially the poor and the farming communities. In fact, it is worth mentioning here that even a wealthy country and now oil-rich country such as the US subsidises oil for its consumers by not taxing it like every other country does. Consumers in America enjoy an exceptional advantage in low gasoline prices, which is why they drive so much and their entire auto industry is known to produce large, gas-guzzling vehicles to this day. Therefore, phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies is not only more sensible and pragmatic, it is also more geopolitically palatable than phasing out of fossil fuels per se.
That said, I think it is possible to make progress on fuel subsidies as well. I say this from looking at what we in India have managed to do with LPG subsidies to households. More than a decade ago, the Indian government took the decision rightly to reduce and end the LPG cooking gas subsidy for the middle-classes and the affluent and direct it only to the poorer families, including in rural India. This went peacefully without any protests in the country, as most middle-class families were happy to give up their subsidy, in order that it be targeted more specifically towards the poor and needy. I am not sure how much the Indian government has saved on account of this LPG subsidy being reduced but more than the savings, the fact that millions more in the country are now able to use LPG for cooking is worth the sacrifice.
This shows that it is possible to phase out subsidies in a staggered way, or even by kind of consumption and income class. Another good decision by the Indian government that is worth mentioning here is the calibrated lowering of subsidy on diesel in order to narrow the price differential between petrol and diesel and therefore, remove the incentive to prefer diesel vehicles over petrol or other types. This has also helped reduce air pollution, since many commercial vehicles like buses and trucks are now being produced as CNG and electric vehicles, and we need to make greater progress on this dimension.
I am citing these examples from India to show that it is possible to lower subsidies and/or direct them better to people who need them for a while longer. However, this doesn’t mean we don’t still have a long way to go in reducing subsidies and lowering carbon emissions and other kinds of pollution. The one industry crying out for cleaner fuel policies is the power generating sector in India, which still largely produces thermal power. We persist with it as coal is cheaper than any other fuel and also to keep India’s largest public sector company and monopoly, Coal India, alive and growing. And even our ultra-mega power plants run by some of India’s largest corporations such as Tata and Adani depend on coal, but imported coal which is a superior grade compared to Coal India’s, when at least they should have shifted to cleaner fuel such as natural gas. Located along India’s coastline, these ultra-mega power units could have imported LNG instead of coal!
And, as I have written before, this Indian government is guilty of keeping fuel prices in India high for several years even when global oil prices were reasonably low, by increasing import duties and excise in order to fill their coffers instead of passing on the benefits of lower oil prices to Indian consumers.
Yet, with many policies in India that hint at a willingness to reduce oil subsidies, India was apparently not in the camp that was arguing for the phasing out of fossil fuels, but on the other side. And from what I read, India was even arguing that developed and advanced economies must reduce their emissions first as they are historically the largest emitters. While this is true, India and other countries cannot keep harping on this one point and expect to make progress; we must display a willingness and a proactive attitude to policymaking in order to move things forward. It also turns out that India has not submitted any recent report on progress made on our NDCs. This is indeed unfortunate and disappointing.
In fact, as far as all developing economies are concerned, including the low-income countries, they have been going really slow on tackling climate change and clean energy transition on the grounds that they are poor and need to continue to use fossil fuels for much longer. While it is true that advanced economies need to do much more to help share clean technology with developing countries and also help them with financing for this, poorer and developing countries must start taking greater initiative in framing policies for mitigating climate change and reducing dependence on fossil fuels.
Take countries in Africa or Latin America, for instance. These continents have abundant sunshine, wind and sources of hydel power, for them to really step up their generation and adoption of solar and hydropower. They don’t have to wait years as many other countries did in shifting to solar, wind and hydropower in the previous century. They can leapfrog right away to achieving high levels of installed capacity in solar, wind and other renewables. Countries in the tropics that are mostly from the Global South have this advantage, which we must use to our greatest benefit and transition even faster to cleaner energy. China which has taken huge strides in its push towards renewables in recent years, and produces solar panels cheaper than anywhere else in the world can surely help other developing countries make a quicker and easier transition to clean energy.
On phasing out fossil fuels under the Paris Accord, and what was agreed to at COP28, Dubai, COFFIS (Coalition on Phasing out of Fossil Fuels Incentives Including Subsidies) is apparently the main body that is pursuing ways to reduce fiscal incentives that keep countries dependent on fossil fuels. I happened to read about it on the website of an organisation called the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) based in Canada. COFFIS and CETP (Clean Energy Transition Partnership) are the two main coalitions that enjoy growing support from countries committed to tackling climate change.
Adaptation to climate change is another area that doesn’t receive enough attention, but is in fact the area that needs much greater financing from the private sector as government grants alone aren’t adequate. I had written about how climate finance could help with funds for adaptation over a year ago with my thoughts on the UN setting up a global climate adaptation debt fund, even though I am not a finance professional. In the same piece I had written about how the UN could also harness the power of a brand, by creating a new climate change brand. In a set of two blog posts at the start of 2025, I had shared my thoughts on Reneworld, the UN Climate Change brand that would raise funds (a kind of crowdfunding) from citizens worldwide by appealing to their sense of care and concern for fellow-citizens, families and friends.
Onward now to Turkey for COP31 next year, where one hopes the phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies will be discussed. It is time for politicians and governments especially from the developing and emerging world to bring greater resolve and policy ideas with them, which can take the goal of transition away from fossil fuels forward. And those from the developed world need to provide clean technology and fund the clean energy transition around the world. Else, the next conference will also come a cropper, and all the time and progress made in the past decade since the Paris Accord of 2015, will be lost.
The featured image at the start of this post of negotiations at the COP30 Summit in Belem, Brazil, is from UNFCCC’s website on COP30.
Peripatetic Perch 