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Kyte discusses how rising global tensions, energy crises and resource conflicts are colliding with the climate emergency, disrupting life around the world and what is the UK’s response?
The West Asia tensions confirm the decision to become energy secure by investing in renewable energy to be less sensitive to international gas and oil markets and price increases, Kyte said. File Image/Getty
Geopolitical tensions are complicating the global transition away from fossil fuels, as governments clash over security energy supply and access to critical resources. Amidst all this, 2026 is on track to become one of the hottest years ever, with global warming and climate impacts already affecting lives and livelihoods.
CNN-News18 spoke to Rachel Kyte, the United Kingdom’s Special Representative for Climate, about what these developments mean global climate cooperationThe future of the energy transition away from fossil fuels and the UK’s response to meeting its climate commitments.
Part:
With war in West Asia, rising geopolitical tensions, and the US retreating from its climate obligations, is climate cooperation in real danger? How is the UK responding?
These geopolitical tensions confirm the correctness of our decision to become energy secure by investing in our own renewable energy so that we become less vulnerable to international gas and oil markets and price spikes. We learned a lesson after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Therefore, moving away from a fossil fuel-based economy is absolutely fundamental to our national and economic security and our climate ambitions. The foundation of our cooperation with India following the Strategic Partnership and Free Trade Agreement (FTA) last year is technical cooperation on renewable energy to allow India to make its transition quickly and easily.
In terms of climate diplomacy, the United States has decided to leave the Paris Agreement and the underlying convention, but everyone else is still in, and everyone else understands the need for cooperation around the energy transition, and that has to continue despite conflicts and tensions around the world. So, as I always say, science didn’t change, and economics didn’t change; Politics remain difficult, and tensions are higher now than we have seen in recent memory, so we have to find a way to continue working together.
There are conflicting studies on Britain’s climate progress; How do you assess it? Is it on track to meet its emissions targets?
It’s kind of fast and furious. A new government was elected in July 2024 and set up mission controls to ensure that our grid can absorb all the new energy we are creating. We want to produce clean energy as soon as possible, so that we can have energy security. The regulatory framework and administrative rules have been significantly improved. We had a successful auction for offshore wind and drove a policy change around rooftop solar, driven largely by India’s ambition for rooftop solar. We have now changed the rules to allow onshore wind and last week opened our first geothermal plant to connect to the grid.
We are moving forward with our nuclear capacity and investing in Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) at sites of heavy industrial activity because it is going to be an essential part of the very small amounts of gas that we will continue to use in our system. At the same time, we are working to keep energy bills affordable for people as we invest in upgrading the grid and its resilience.
Let’s talk about climate finance – developed countries made many promises at the last climate summit, but is the money actually reaching developing countries?
Clearly, there are many countries, including ours, that have invested more money in building their defense capability than they can to meet their obligations in a world that is experiencing war and conflict at a level we have not seen for many years. Then what we are working to do is leverage our public climate finance to attract other forms of finance, such as private funding. We are working with other funding partners and using new tools such as guarantees to bring in more investment. This is at the heart of another area of ​​collaboration between India and the UK, where we have a climate finance initiative in which we are trying to ensure that India attracts more long-term investors, particularly in renewable energy, so that pension funds and insurers who act as investors and other long-term finance see India and India’s green growth story as an attractive place to invest.
There is an international conversation going on about where we can find the new forms of finance, new revenue streams for adaptation and resilience that are needed for the growing climate impacts we are seeing. We’ve just seen scientific reports that sea levels are actually rising faster than we thought due to the effects of extreme heat and flooding around the world. Therefore, we are working on new ways to take insurance forward and spread insurance to cover more people.
India is going to be the testing ground for some of these innovations and we are fully involved in that. It is true that we have come to the end of the era of the traditional way of using public money. But, we are not retreating from our obligations under the convention; Instead, we’re trying to bring more innovation to the discussion.
While developed countries are experiencing climate impacts themselves, how are you building public support for international climate finance?
British people know climate change is real because they see it in their gardens, in flowers blooming at the wrong time and changes in the behavior of birds. They are experiencing more frequent floods, wetter winters, hotter and drier summers and extreme temperatures that they have never experienced as children. And, when they watch the news, they see it happening all over the world. Therefore, there is no doubt that climate change is happening.
What this Government have said is that the UK contributes only one per cent of emissions today; We had contributed more in the past. But we can’t be as safe as Britain if we don’t help other countries make their transition safe. So, I think previous governments have said why are we investing abroad if we contribute only one per cent? So, we’re like, “Okay, because we’re only one percent.” Investing in India’s success is a big part of ensuring our own security.
So, what are the key areas of UK-India cooperation in terms of climate action?
We have an offshore wind task force, which came out of the strategic partnership and free trade agreement signed last year and the meetings between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Technical cooperation is ongoing on various aspects of long-term battery storage, green hydrogen and energy transition. We have a climate finance initiative, which includes connecting with pension funds in the UK and bringing long-term investors and asset owners to India. We also carry out technical cooperation on grid stability, building on our extensive experience in grid regulation, achieving resilience, as well as disaster risk management.
I mean, for a small country like Britain, if India doesn’t succeed then we won’t succeed in our climate ambitions.
The last UN climate summit in Brazil was the “COP of Implementation”. Has there been any concrete progress since then?
The rhythm is fine. There was the COP, then we had different international meetings, the World Bank and IMF spring meetings, and then now there are regional climate weeks. So, there’s a different rhythm now because this is the era of implementation, and I think that’s really important. I don’t think we can have 11 months and then just one COP and then 11 months and then one COP. Of course, Turkey is very busy hosting, and Australia is very busy managing the negotiations, but we are focused on the things that need to be accomplished in this decade. There is a huge emphasis on delivering on the promise of reducing methane as it is an accelerant and short-lived climate pollutant.
There is also a focus on how we finance adaptation and on countries that have not yet filed their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). We are really eager to see the subjugation of India.
March 10, 2026, 16:29 IST
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