Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman talking on the Munich Safety Dialogue on February 14, 2026. Credit score: Screengrab from video on X/@nsitharamanoffc
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman known as for differentiated duty amongst international locations in the direction of mitigating local weather change , primarily based on the ‘polluter pays’ precept.
Talking on the on Saturday (February 14, 2026), Ms. Sitharaman additionally requested international locations to share their applied sciences, on a industrial foundation, to combat local weather change.
The Union minister has on a number of events, together with across the World Financial institution- Worldwide Financial Fund conferences in Washington DC, known as for know-how cooperation and superior economies which have been historic polluters contributing extra in the direction of funding for local weather motion.
“It can’t be that international locations which have much less contributed to emissions, are made to pay equally,” she mentioned calling for differentiated remedy of duties to preventing local weather change.
“Polluter pays,” she added, throughout a panel titled, ‘Levels of Instability: Local weather Safety in a Warming World’
Whereas specializing in longer-term local weather motion the federal government additionally needed to deal with a extra quick response to to how local weather change is affecting communities, in keeping with Ms. Sitharaman. She known as for focus not simply on emissions management however resilience and adaptation.
“In any other case, you’re going to sacrifice plenty of human beings, livestock in our eagerness, which is a justified eagerness, to avoid wasting the local weather for the Earth,” she mentioned.
The minister mentioned that applied sciences must also be capable to work with one another, as she known as for the sharing of applied sciences on a industrial foundation.
Saying India had elevated the share of GDP spent on local weather motion during the last six years, Ms. Sitharaman argued that the nation was not ready for funds and know-how to return from elsewhere.
“However they need to come,” she mentioned, including that such will increase in spending have been going to be much more difficult for African international locations.
Additionally Learn: India’s progress on its local weather targets
Ms. Sitharaman defined the allocations in the direction of environmental applications within the Union Funds didn’t inform your entire story of how a lot can be spent on initiatives in the course of the 12 months.
The Finance Minister was responding to a query on the Union Funds’s discount in funds allotted to the management of air pollution in comparison with final 12 months and the rise in funding for the ‘Inexperienced India’ mission. Whereas funding for the mission elevated from ₹95.7 crores in 2025-26 to ₹212.5 crores for 2026-27, the allocation for the management of air pollution for 2026-27 stands at round ₹1091 crores, down from a revised estimate of ₹1,300 crores for 2025-26.
She described funding as a “dynamic course of” with supplementary need-based grants doubtlessly being given in the course of the course of the 12 months.
Worldwide cooperation on local weather change has been shaken because the return of U.S. President Donald Trump to the White Home in January 2025, with the administration reversing U.S. insurance policies on the inexperienced transition, together with pulling America out of the Paris Settlement on local weather, once more.
One of many panelists, Sheldon Whitehouse, a U.S. Senator and the best rating Democrat on the Senate setting committee, criticised the Trump administration.
“What this administration is saying about local weather change can actually solely be put within the class of corruption,” Mr Whitehouse mentioned. He apologized for U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio’s ‘local weather cult’ comment made earlier on Saturday (February 14, 2026) in Munich saying the comment wouldn’t age effectively.
“The fossil gasoline business has constructed the most important equipment of fraudulent misinformation and darkish cash political corruption within the historical past of the species,” Mr. Whitehouse mentioned.
Revealed – February 14, 2026 06:14 pm IST