Shri Bhupender Yadav, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, highlights India's innovative financing mechanisms for land restoration and drought resilience at the COP17 of the UNCCD in Ulaanbaatar.
On August 24, 2026, Shri Bhupender Yadav, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, addressed the 'Innovative Financial Mechanisms for Healthy Land and Drought Resilience' Ministerial Dialogue during the 17th Conference of Parties (CoP17) of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Yadav underscored the need for sustained investment in land restoration and emphasized that it is an investment in food, water, biodiversity, livelihoods, and long-term resilience rather than a cost. He stressed that addressing desertification, land degradation, and drought at scale requires diversified, predictable, and sustained sources of finance beyond public budgets, along with stronger public-private partnerships.
Yadav highlighted India's blended green-finance framework, which enables financing for climate change adaptation, sustainable land use, forestry, agriculture, afforestation, and biodiversity conservation. He specifically mentioned Sovereign Green Bonds as an avenue to mobilize capital for land restoration, drought resilience, sustainable forestry, and other environmental and climate priorities.
The Minister also highlighted India's Green Credit Programme, which enables public and private entities to finance the restoration of degraded forest land. Credits are issued after five years of restoration and upon achieving at least 40 per cent canopy density, and may be used once for compensatory afforestation, statutory plantation, or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) obligations. Yadav also discussed India's compensatory conservation regime, which channels payments received for forest diversion towards compensatory afforestation and ecosystem restoration, while corporate funding is integrated by the environmental regulatory processes.
Yadav emphasized that finance must be continuous, verifiable, and connected to local communities. He noted that India's experience demonstrates what committed domestic resources can achieve but stressed that this cannot substitute for additional, adequate, and predictable international finance for restoration and drought resilience.
Source:
Press Information Bureau
