G20 summit: India seeks 'new instruments for financing' to drive sustainable development goals

On the eve of the G20 summit, India sought “new instruments for financing” to drive sustainable development goals and furthering the climate agenda focusing on the concerns of the Global South – countries having poor socio-economic indicators and are at the receiving end of consequences for climate change.

“We are way behind on our SDG goals like improving the education, health and nutrition standards. Climate actions also require finance for the Global South. New financial instruments are required to drive the SDG and climate finance,” Amitabh Kant, India’s Sherpa at the G20 summit said at the pre-summit press conference here.

Highlighting the key points in India’s presidency, Kant said India wanted the world to take the lead on green development in areas like climate action and climate finance.

This remained one of the concerns for India with the leadership flagging how the rich and industrialised nations failed in meeting their commitment of providing $100 billion annual funding by 2020 – a pledge that was made repeatedly at UN climate summits beginning with the one at Copenhagen in 2009.

New Delhi has repeatedly flagged how rich nations failed to meet their commitments but wanted emerging economies like India to cut down on their emission, crippling their aspirations to grow.

On the UN sustainable development goals, Kant said most of the countries including India were way behind their targets.

“Only 12 of the 169 SDGs are on track and we are way behind the schedule. We are midway at the 2030 Action Point. But we are way behind. Therefore accelerating SDGs, improving learning outcomes, healthy outcomes, nutrition - all these were very critical for India's presidency,” he said.

Kant, who would assist Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the leaders’ summit, said New Delhi wanted to take the lead on green development.

“There were several components of this which we wanted to drive and therefore, green development, climate action, and climate finance were our third priority. Because both SDG and climate action require finance, particularly for developing and emerging markets in the global south.”

India’s G20 presidency, he said, was inclusive, ambitious, decisive and action-oriented. “Our view was that the Global South, developing countries and emerging markets which has been a very key component of India's presidency must be able to get long-term financing and must be able to use new instruments for financing to drive both SDGs and climate finance," he said.