The Basic grouping added that its views were aligned with the position taken by the Western African country of Guinea on behalf of the G77 group of developing nations and China. Yadav said during the opening of COP26 that the grouping endorsed for the delivery of the promised $100 billion climate finance support for developing countries, and a carbon market mechanism that facilitates private sector engagement in the fight against climate change.

At the COP15 meeting in Copenhagen in 2009, developed countries committed to mobilising $100 billion a year by 2020 to support developing countries in climate change mitigation efforts. These funds were meant to come from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral, and multilateral, and including alternative sources of finance.

“Delivered the Basic statement at the opening plenary of #COP26, underlining that developed nations have not only failed to meet the $100 billion goal per year of support to developing nations since 2009, but also continue to present it as a ceiling of their ambition all the way to 2025,” Bhupender Yadav tweeted on Monday.

“On the long-term temperature goal, the latest available science makes it clear that all parties need to immediately contribute their fair share,” the Basic statement said. “Achieving it will require developed countries to rapidly reduce their emissions and dramatically scale up their financial support to developing countries. Unfortunately, we have not made much progress on these issues. It is particularly disturbing.”

The Basic nations said they were expecting a clear road map from developed countries on their existing obligations to mobilise $100 billion per year from 2021 to 2025… and the willingness to urgently initiate the process within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of setting a new collective quantified goal on finance.

The bloc also said it was expecting a market mechanism that facilitates private sector engagement in carbon markets in the larger fight against the climate crisis.

“Decisions particularly on climate finance and Article 6 (which pertains to cutting emissions) can significantly help enhance climate ambition,” the Basic statement said.

Such a delay not only risks delaying how countries roll-out climate crisis mitigation measures — such as switching to clean energy — but also threatens to open the rift between the developed and developing nations on the crisis. Developing countries like India have pointed to what they say is lack of equity in responsibility and climate justice since developed countries have typically enjoyed decades of unbridled climate restrictions when they grew.

A finance delivery plan jointly led by Canada and Germany said last month that developed countries will likely be able to mobilise $100 billion funding only in 2023 – with a delay of three years.

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