Climate catastrophe won’t wait for world leaders to agree—companies must act now in their own interest

The core issue is simple. Countries could not agree on how or when to phase out fossil fuels that are primarily responsible for the climate crisis. They pledged to triple adaptation finance to $120 billion each year by 2035, but offered no timeline for delivery and no one to hold accountable for it. On trade and finance, the mechanisms that actually move capital, the summit produced nothing.

Negotiators at the 2025 Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) moved these conversations into so-called ‘presidency consultations,’ which is diplomatic code for ‘later.’

This pattern has worn thin. The 2009 commitment of $100 billion in annual climate finance was never fully delivered. Now we are told to trust pledges of about $300 billion annually and a Baku-to-Belém Roadmap to mobilize $1.3 trillion. Without enforcement, these are merely hopes and not plans. And hope does not move capital, plans do.

Business leaders watching from boardrooms have grown tired of this cycle. They have been promised clarity on fossil fuel timelines. But all they got was ambiguity. They have been promised frameworks to manage carbon tariffs and trade. What they got was silence. They have been promised accountability on financial commitments. Instead, they got vague targets and no one to hold responsible.

Climate science tells a story that demands urgency. The World Resources Institute’s State of Climate Action 2025 report found that no sector is moving fast enough to keep planetary warming at safe levels. The Climate Action Tracker estimated that even if every country kept every climate pledge, the world would still warm by 2.3-2.5° Celsius above its pre-industrial level. Current policies point to 2.8° Celsius of global warming. The gap between commitments and outcomes is growing wider, not narrower.

This should inform how businesses respond. Waiting for a consensus among 194 countries is a choice that no company should make. The climate does not negotiate, it acts. Businesses must do the same.

Consider what is happening in practice. Private climate finance reached $1.3 trillion in 2023, driven by corporations, consumers and investors. Governments did not lead this shift; business and industry did. Renewable energy capacity is breaking records despite policy uncertainty. Electric vehicles are being deployed at scale without a globally integrated policy framework. This tells us something. Businesses do not need permission from summits to move. They need permission from their own pragmatic calculations.

For India, this matters even more. The country faces a climate crisis that will not wait for global agreement. Heatwaves are intensifying, water is getting scarcer and farm yields are shifting. These are not future shocks. They are a clear and present danger that’s worsening. India’s renewable capacity exceeds 180 gigawatts. The country has met some of its climate targets five years early. It, however, still needs to build resilience into its economy at scale.

Indian businesses cannot wait for the $310 billion in annual adaptation finance that the United Nations Environment Programme’s Adaptation Gap Report 2025 estimates developing countries need by 2035. That money may never fully arrive.

Instead, companies dependent on agriculture, water or temperature-sensitive operations must invest in resilience themselves. For instance, they must fortify company infrastructure against heat and floods.

Second, Indian businesses should act to diversify their supply chains across geographies. Relying on single regions or sectors leaves companies exposed to climate shocks that will worsen over time. Geography matters, supply chains matter and resilience comes from well-spread operations.

Third, Indian industry should set standards within its own sectors without waiting for regulation. Industry groups can establish climate metrics and accountability systems. This creates pressure. It builds markets. It demonstrates what is possible.

With or without a multilateral consensus, it is time to move ahead. There is nothing but risk in falling behind what science demands. The companies that treat climate adaptation as an operational necessity will gain an advantage over those that wait. Markets are shifting accordingly and supply chains are already forming.

CoP-30 proved that summits cannot move at the speed that the climate requires. Businesses must not wait for a grand global agreement. The calculus is simple. Climate impacts will accelerate, regulatory costs will rise and supply chains will fracture. Companies that build resilience now can reduce these costs. They can secure their assets and help protect markets.

India’s businesses should read the Belém outcome as a signal of an evolving situation that promises little certainty. The world cannot afford many more missed opportunities at UN climate summits. Businesses cannot afford to wait for agreement either.

The author is an independent expert based in New Delhi, Kolkata and Odisha. Twitter: @scurve Instagram: @soumya.scurve.