New Delhi: The biggest climate summit of the year, the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29), will be starless, with the leaders of the United States, China, Japan and Brazil planning to miss the Baku conclave, in Azerbaijan later this week. .

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also unlikely to attend the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference, scheduled for November 11-12. Senior officials at the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) attributed this to “prior commitments”.

Yadav was present at the 28th conference in Dubai last year, as was Modi, who addressed the presidency’s session on “Transforming Climate Finance”, expressing the South’s concerns and reiterating the urgency of finding means of implementation, particularly climate finance, in developing countries. .

“The minister may be absent due to commitments around the Maharashtra elections. But this is not the final plan,” a senior ministry official told ThePrint. Earlier this year, the BJP had made Yadav in charge of the Maharashtra Assembly elections scheduled for November 20.

With Yadav’s presence yet to be confirmed, the Indian delegation to the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – better known as the COP – will most likely be led by Kirti Vardhan Singh, Minister of State for Environment, Forests and Climate. change.

Singh also led the Indian delegation to the recent COP16 of the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity in Cali, Colombia.

A report from Financial Times said executives from Bank of America, Standard Chartered and Deutsche Bank are also rethinking their participation, citing “fewer networking opportunities with clients than at COP28 in Dubai last year.” The report also quotes an unnamed finance executive, who said: “You only go to the party when everyone else goes. »

Long list of absentees

The most notable absence will be that of the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. “The Commission is in a transition phase and the President will therefore concentrate on her institutional tasks,” said a European Commission spokesperson. The guardian.

Besides Leyen, other temporary absentees would be outgoing US President Joe Biden and French leader Emmanuel Macron. Brazil’s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is also reported to miss this year’s negotiations due to head trauma.

Other countries whose leaders could be absent include China, Japan, Australia and South Africa.

According to the UNFCCC speaker list, around 105 heads of state are expected to speak at the COP29 World Leaders’ Summit on Climate Action. This list does not mention Modi.

“India will negotiate hard”

Senior environment ministry officials said the absence of Modi and Yadav in Baku would not impact Indian negotiations. “The government’s objective is clear. We will negotiate hard to protect India’s interests, and that is exactly what our delegates will do,” a ministry official told ThePrint.

The government has not yet disclosed the names of the members of the delegation who will travel to Baku.

Experts said this year’s COP aims to mobilize significant climate finance for developing countries. This funding would support their efforts to mitigate climate change, adapt to its impact and address loss and damage, thereby contributing to global climate action and sustainable development.

Vaibhav Pratap Singh, executive director of Climate and Sustainability Initiative (CSI), a global research organization for climate action, said developing countries – often constrained by limited capital – seek financial support from developed countries according to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities to face global problems. climate change.

“The climate finance target of $100 billion per year to be provided by developed countries to developing countries by 2020 has not yet been achieved,” Singh said, adding that this was decided during the 15th edition of this annual event.

Singh explained that to fill this gap, new financial targets under the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) for the post-2025 period should be proposed at this COP.

Experts also said that while the presence of heads of state was a show of strength and commitment at an international forum, more important would be the action plans that countries would bring to the negotiating table.

(Edited by Tikli Basu)

Also read: US President-elect Donald Trump’s views on climate change: ‘The green scam, not our problem’