NEW DELHI: India has withdrawn its proposal to host the 33rd edition of the Conference of Parties (COP33) climate summit, which is scheduled for 2028.
Rajat Agrawal, a joint secretary at the the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change, informed the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) about India’s decision.
Agrawal, who has the responsibility of liaising with the UN body, conveyed the decision to the chair of the Asia-Pacific Group of the organisation in a letter sent on April 2.
Spokesperson of the ministry Virat Majboor confirmed to this newspaper that India had indeed communicated its decision to the UNFCCC secretariat. “This has been officially communicated to the concerned parties, but no further details are available,” he said.
Unconfirmed reports state that India told the chair of the Asia-Pacific group that the decision was based on the “review of its commitments for 2028”.
During COP28 in Dubai in 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that India wished to host COP33.