- With the US withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and Europe distracted by war-driven pressures, India and China have emerged as anchors at the Brazil climate summit by shaping climate finance and trade negotiations through coordinated positions.
- Their alignment on funding support for developing countries and resistance to new trade barriers is not new, but it carries greater weight this year because the traditional climate leaders are silent, leaving smaller nations looking to India and China for direction.
- The two Asian giants are filling a leadership gap not through grand announcements but through consistent messaging inside negotiation rooms, giving developing countries a stronger collective voice at a moment when global climate diplomacy feels uncertain.
The room had barely settled when an Indian negotiator joked that the tense climate-finance session felt like “mandatory therapy.” A Chinese delegate quickly added, “Not just therapy. We need yoga and a massage.” According to a delegate present at the meeting, the light-hearted exchange drew laughter and softened the mood.
It also revealed something deeper. India and China often coordinate at climate summits, but their easy camaraderie at the climate talks in Brazil (COP30) carries new weight because the world’s traditional climate leaders are no longer steering the process.
With the United States again pulling back from the Paris Agreement under the second Donald Trump administration, and the European Union distracted by the economic and political pressures of the war in Ukraine, the leadership vacuum has made India and China’s familiar alignment unusually influential in Belém this year. What was once a routine partnership has become a central force in holding together a summit that feels unanchored.
Old partnership in a new world
Inside the negotiating rooms, India and China have been echoing each other’s positions with a smoothness that even veteran observers did not expect. For years, both countries have pushed for the same broad demands that hinged on more reliable financial support from wealthy nations, fewer trade barriers that hurt developing economies, and fairer expectations for poorer countries trying to cut emissions. None of that is new.
What is new is the context. With Washington now outside the UN climate process and Brussels struggling to maintain diplomatic momentum, the absence of a clear Western lead has made the India-China tandem the most consistent voice in the room.
Their arguments are straightforward and delivered in plain terms. The two Asian giants say don’t ask developing countries to take on tougher climate targets without reliable funding; don’t introduce trade measures or make clean energy more expensive; and don’t change the basic rules of climate responsibility without broad agreement.
Bhupender Yadav, India’s Environment Minister, met Liu Zhenmin, Special Envoy for Climate Change from China, on the sidelines of COP30 on November 19. “Our discussions involved matters related to coordination between LMDC countries in the ongoing developments in COP30, with particular focus on maintaining the integrity of the Paris Agreement,” Yadav said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). LMDC is short for Like-Minded Developing Countries, a grouping that cooperates on issues to represent common interests at the climate talks.
India often speaks first, and China reinforces, doubling pressure on wealthier nations at a time when many smaller countries feel their concerns are being overlooked. At COP30, the partnership sounds less like routine coordination and more like steadying hands guiding a summit without its usual anchors.
Trade pressure strengthens alignment
Another layer to their cooperation lies in the clean-energy trade that connects their economies. China is the world’s largest producer of solar panels, batteries and other equipment needed for climate action. India imports much of this technology. That dependence can be a political vulnerability, but it also ties both countries together when trade rules are debated on the international stage. A study by the University of California at San Diego has shown how interwoven their clean-energy markets remain, despite India’s push to build more factories at home.
“India and China’s expanding clean-energy trade has the potential to define Asia’s decarbonization trajectory,” said Teevrat Garg, Associate Professor, Economics, University of California at San Diego.
This shared economic interest helps explain why both nations have strongly opposed Europe’s planned carbon border tax, which would raise the price of imported goods in the European Union based on how much carbon was released in making them. Developing countries fear their exports would be hit hardest. India and China were among the most vocal critics of the plan in Belém.
India and China may be united against Europe’s carbon border tax, but the measure would likely push more Chinese clean-energy equipment into India while making Indian exports to Europe more expensive. That could deepen India’s short-term reliance on Chinese technology even as it tries to build its own factories, creating a tension between their diplomatic unity and their diverging economic interests.
“The EU is embarking on a multi-layered, multi-front climate-trade confrontation, risking both capitulation to Trump on one side and alienating many in the Global South on the other,” said Li Shuo, Director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “The greatest danger is that it ultimately fails to achieve its intended objectives of gaining geopolitical partners, enhancing competitiveness, or reducing emissions.”
With the United States absent and the European Union defending its own policy, India and China’s positions are resonating more clearly with countries that rely on affordable imports to expand their renewable-energy capacity.
Pragmatic leadership
Neither India nor China came to Belém intending to fill a global leadership role. India’s environment ministry has repeatedly said that predictable climate finance is the “critical enabler of ambition,” a message it reinforced again this year. China has supported that position not only on the plenary floor but also within the group of developing nations it is a part of, offering political cover for smaller countries that struggle to confront the West directly.
This is not inspirational leadership, and neither country claims it as such. It is a form of reluctant stewardship, a stabilising influence in a summit missing the active involvement of those who once drove the Paris climate pact forward. Without the US acting as a broker and without Europe rallying coalitions around new climate goals, India and China’s ability to articulate common concerns has given shape to discussions that might otherwise drift.
Cooperation has limits
Despite their smooth coordination, India and China remain uneasy partners with their own priorities. India is determined to reduce its dependence on Chinese technology and has launched major programmes to build more solar and battery factories at home. China, meanwhile, aims to protect its manufacturing dominance as global markets shift.
Both also seek influence within the developing world, sometimes quietly competing for diplomatic space. Their border tensions and broader geopolitical rivalry do not disappear simply because they push similar positions in climate talks.
There are also differences in how they approach transparency. India publishes more climate data than many developing countries, but still struggles with slow updates and uneven reporting. China is even more cautious, with many firms holding back full emissions disclosures to avoid exposing industrial risks. India is more public-facing, while China is more guarded, but both maintain transparency in ways that protect domestic priorities.
These limits suggest that the partnership seen at COP30 is unlikely to become a long-term alliance. It is grounded in overlapping needs and shared resistance to what they see as unfair burdens, not in deep political trust.
Vacuum makes voices sound different
Perhaps the clearest way to understand India and China’s growing influence at COP30 is to notice who is not speaking. With the European Union consumed by domestic pressures, the usual drivers of climate ambition are either silent or speaking too softly to steer the summit.
Into that silence stepped in two countries that know the process well, that have coordinated for years, and that now find the global stage quieter around them. Their positions have not drastically changed. The world around them has.
By reinforcing each other’s messages, they have become the steady centre of a summit struggling to find direction. Delegates who once looked to Brussels for signals are now watching New Delhi and Beijing instead, if only because someone must set the tone.
Whether this shift will last is uncertain. India’s domestic industry is growing. China’s trade pressures are rising. Geopolitical friction remains. But in Belém, at least for now, the two largest developing countries have become unwitting stabilisers of a climate summit without its traditional leaders.
And it truly shows in a moment of levity, a joke about yoga and massage, which captured how comfortable they have become working side by side, and how different the world looks when others step back.
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Banner image: Speakers at the high-level event on building cooperation for scaling climate finance. Image © UN Climate Change – Diego Herculano via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
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