India among world’s 13 leading nations spearheading fight against climate change: WEF

New Delhi: India is among the world’s 13 leading industrial clusters along with countries such as Australia, Brazil, the Netherlands, the UK and Saudi Arabia to join the World Economic Forum’s Transitioning Industrial Clusters initiative to fight climate change and safeguard the planet, according to a WEF statement issued on Sunday.

A new white paper has been released to highlight the critical role that industrial clusters play in advancing the deployment of clean-energy infrastructure at scale. It features leading players deploying innovative collaboration and business models while harnessing the power of digital technologies.

The Accelerating the Energy Transition: Unpacking the Business and Economic Cases report articulated the difficulty of translating the well-established benefits of climate action into private investment, the statement said.

“The Global South is paying the price for other areas of the world causing climate change,” said Cindy H. McCain, Executive Director, United Nations World Food Programme. “The people that can least afford it, that have the least ability to fight it, are the ones being affected the most.”

With climate change-related extreme weather events and risks increasingly evident, world leaders participating in WEF 2025, which concluded this week, called for the need for swifter, wider and deeper action. The meeting built on the momentum from the three UN COPs on Climate, Land and Biodiversity in 2024 to scale the deployment of renewable energy, drive energy efficiencies while addressing energy demand, and protect and restore nature.

The WEF also released its first State of Nature and Climate report, presenting the latest data on planetary health and global corporate progress in addressing climate and nature challenges.

The Forum published six reports aimed at accelerating the global shift toward a nature-positive future. Five focused on sector-specific strategies for critical industries — offshore wind, mining and metals, ports, and automotive — while the sixth examined financing solutions for building nature-positive cities.

The Forum’s inaugural Giving to Amplify Earth Action (GAEA) Awards honoured five groundbreaking initiatives that are advancing solutions to the world’s most pressing climate and nature challenges. The five awarded collaborations will receive tailored support throughout 2025 to advance and scale impact and drive systems-wide change, the statement said.

It further stated leading companies across retail, e-commerce, mobility and logistics announced new commitments and a shared ambition for more sustainable and efficient urban deliveries while working with the government to embrace new solutions and models that benefit consumers, couriers, companies and cities.

–IANS