'India can put in place a resilient green model'

Usha Rao-Monari, under secretary-general at the United Nations Development Programme UNDP), believes all countries must balance growth with decarbonisation efforts in order for all of us to survive. In an interview to FE’s Banikinkar Pattanayak, she also speaks about gaps in green financing, India’s G20 presidency, the country’s good progress on many of the sustainable development goals and widening inequality across the globe. Edited excerpts:

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India assumed the G20 presidency on December 1. How can it leverage this presidency to push for more fund flow to poor and developing nations for climate financing?

The issue about climate finance is that it hasn't been entirely equitable to the Global South (less industrialised countries) and that's why for the first time in this COP, loss and damage was on the agenda and now there is a proposed "loss and damage" fund. That's one way that the Global South gets money to finance their climate goals. India is part of the Global South and it knows what is needed as far as climate as far as climate finance is concerned and it can use its voice as the G20 president to push some of the climate objectives. One, finance has to be equal for both mitigation and adaptation.

Currently, adaptation finance is just 5-7% of the total climate finance. It has to go up to 25% to start with, and higher as we go forward. Second, there has to be an action plan around how various potential sources of finance-- public, private, domestic and international--can be brought together.

That's where India, which has developed a very strong NDC (nationallydetermined contributions) and financing plan, can help other countries through its G20 presidency.