UN climate chief backs Modi on clean energy shielding India from oil shocks

UN climate chief Simon Stiell has backed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's claim that clean energy investments helped India withstand the global oil crisis, calling his remarks "very salient". In a written interview with ANI from Antalya, where COP31 is being held from 9 to 20 November 2026, Stiell said the world faces a global fossil fuel cost crisis with rising import costs pushing inflation across economies.

Stiell welcomed India's Green Energy Corridor initiative as a "major step forward that will deliver big dividends". He endorsed the Turkish Presidency's proposed global 35-by-35 electrification pledge, saying clean energy "protects economies from the ruinous rollercoaster of fossil fuel dependency". Modi had told the Bharat Renewable Energy Summit on 2 November that without a decade of clean energy investment, India's crisis "could have been much more severe".