Timing, in climate diplomacy, is everything. India released the third instalment of its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC 3.0) this week as the West Asia crisis continues to intensify and energy markets convulsed.
A new analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) for Carbon Brief found that India’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emission in 2025 grew by 0.7%, the slowest rate in the last two decades. This is a sharp slowdown from the growth of 4-11% in the preceding four years and the lowest rate of increase since 2001, excluding the impact of COVID in 2020.

India’s cabinet has approved the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC 3.0) for the period 2031 to 2035 after months of delay, at a time when geopolitical conflict in West Asia disrupted the global energy supply chains and exposed the cost of fossil fuel dependence.
A new report found that China has committed more than US$120bn in outbound foreign direct investment (OFDI) into resource mining and processing since 2023. This massive investment has been spread over a wide spectrum of critical minerals such as lithium, rare earths, nickel, copper, high-grade iron ore, bauxite, precious metals and other materials — critical inputs for emerging technologies like batteries, solar, wind, EVs and industrial decarbonisation.
India is laying the foundation stones of a national compliance carbon market. The market design features and regulatory systems are progressively under development, and industries are starting to prepare for the market. Much of the conversation so far has focused on targets, sectors, and trading rules. These are of course important — but the strongest foundation of an effective carbon market is something far more elementary.
A new analysis by Ember found that the electric vehicle fleet prevented the oil consumption of 1.7 million barrels per day of oil globally in 2025, which is equivalent to 70% or 2.4 million barrels exported by Iran through the Strait of Hormuz.
The war between Israel-US and Iran has once again exposed the fragile foundations of Asia’s energy security. Crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices surged by 51% and 77% respectively in less than two weeks, according to a report by Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). For Asia, the fossil fuel import dependence is proving to be costly.