Developed countries should ramp up coal taxes to meet a promise to deliver $100 billion a year by 2020 to poorer nations, India’s climate minister said on Tuesday.
India recently doubled its tax on the production of coal from $2.96 to $5.94 a tonne, with the proceeds going to environmental projects.
“If they [developed countries] tax at $6 a tonne, it will really mobilise the funds,” said Prakash Javadekar.
Recent projections from the OECD suggest richer nations mobilised $62 billion of climate-related funding in 2014, a number Indian ministers contest.
Javadekar was speaking ahead of Friday’s UN signing ceremony of the Paris Agreement on climate change, which India aims to formally approve by the close of 2016.
In addition to funding, he said he would ask wealthier nations to offer greater access to clean technologies when he attends the meeting in New York.
India plans to roll out 175 gigawatts of renewables capacity by 2022, deploying 2GW of wind and 3GW of solar through 2015.
“The fight against climate change is all about technology, and that technology must be easily available and affordable. That is the issue we will raise as developing country leadership,” said Javadekar.
India would also raise questions of funding, technology and the need for richer nations to make tougher carbon cuts at a weekend session of the US-initiated Major Economies Forum, he added.