India to submit updated climate targets to UN by end of December: Bhupender Yadav

India will announce its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and release its biennial transparency report (BTR) by December end, Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said on Monday (November 17, 2025) in Belem, Brazil, as part of a meeting of senior ministers from various countries convened during the 30th edition of the Conference of Parties.

As a signatory to the Paris Agreement, India is required to release an updated NDC by 2025, detailing its voluntary actions to transition away from fossil fuel use and improve energy efficiency.

Since November, more than 100 countries have submitted an updated NDC outlining the action they will take until 2035. For several countries, this translates into a reduction in the use of fossil fuels. For example, the European Union collectively plans a 55% net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and a potential reduction of 66.25% to 72.5% by 2035, compared to 1990 levels. Brazil has committed to reducing emissions by 59% and 67% by 2035 compared to 2005 levels.

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India’s emissions are likely to increase in the coming years, but the country has committed to slowing this growth every year. China has committed to reducing net economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 7% to 10% from their ‘peak’, but has not specified when this peak year will be.

India declared its first NDC in 2022: to achieve an emissions intensity of its GDP of 45% by 2030, above 2005 levels, with 50% of its installed energy capacity coming from non-fossil sources and an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent created through additional forest and tree cover, all by 2030.

India has achieved its energy capacity target ahead of schedule and is reportedly on track for the other two.

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Achieving energy efficiency or emissions reduction targets will require structural and expensive changes to India’s energy systems, and for years the country has been sticking to the line – in international negotiations such as at climate COPs – that not enough affordable public financing is being made available to help with this transition and that developed countries, which are responsible for the high levels of atmospheric carbon that are accelerating climate change, are not only not cutting their own emissions fast enough but are also hampering the economic development of developing countries.

“Developed countries must achieve net zero much earlier than current target dates, meet their obligations under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement and provide new, additional and concessional climate financing estimated to be in the trillions of dollars,” Mr Yadav said in his statement.

This is also the first time that India has committed to a BTR. Countries must submit BTRs every two years and include information on National Inventory Reports (NIR), progress towards NDCs, policies and measures, climate change impacts and adaptation, financial levels, technology development and transfer and capacity building support, capacity building needs and areas for improvement.

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Experts said an NDC, while important, was not the only document that underlined a country’s commitment to take action to tackle climate change.

“Accessing cheap government financing is one of the key issues hindering climate action. The NDCs will certainly be updated, but there are other steps that are needed and required to meet the commitments (made by developed countries) to achieve global emissions targets,” said Vaibhav Chaturvedi, Senior Fellow of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW).