India got its first-ever dedicated climate solutions platform on Monday, as Mumbai Climate Week 2026 opened its doors at the Jio World Convention Centre.
The event is built around three big themes: urban resilience, food systems, and clean energy transition and will run from February 17 to 19, bringing together government officials, businesses, financial institutions, NGOs, and citizens to move beyond climate talk and into real action.
WHAT HAPPENED AT MUMBAI CLIMATE WEEK?
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union Minister for Renewable Energy Pralhad Joshi inaugurated the event.
Fadnavis called climate change a “real governance challenge” for a dense coastal city like Mumbai, adding that Maharashtra intends to lead India’s transition by attracting capital, talent, and innovation in the process.
“If Maharashtra transitions successfully, India transitions faster,” he said, positioning the state as an economic opportunity in the country’s fight against climate change.
Union Minister Joshi highlighted India’s clean energy strides, pointing to 3 million households enrolled under the PM Surya Ghar rooftop solar scheme in just two years, and a new global low for green hydrogen prices (Rupees 279 per kilogram).
Sessions on Day 1 spanned a wide range of issues.
On urban resilience, experts discussed how blue-green infrastructure, like lakes, parks, and tree cover, can cool Indian cities naturally.
On food systems, leaders from agriculture and dairy explored how to make farming more climate-resilient while protecting farmer livelihoods. Energy-related discussions focused on scaling distributed solar, enabling round-the-clock renewables, and expanding India’s power grid.
The opening day also saw Maharashtra and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority sign memoranda of understanding with several global bodies, including the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and World Resource Institute (WRI) India.
The agreements cover urban heat mitigation, climate finance, city resilience planning, and low-carbon infrastructure, making Mumbai the region where a number of climate solutions can be tested before being scaled to a national level.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR GLOBAL EFFORTS?
Mumbai Climate Week is the first major global climate gathering of 2026 which also drew in the COP30 Presidency from Brazil as a key participant.
Brazil’s COP30 team will co-host a session on February 19 titled “Road from COP30: Connecting Mumbai to Global Climate Action,” which will showcase initiatives launched at last year’s climate summit in Belem and look at how India can plug into global climate delivery mechanisms.
The Presidency also highlighted tools like the Global Implementation Accelerator to speed up methane reductions and nature-based carbon removal.
The event comes ahead of COP31, scheduled for November 2026 in Antalya, Turkey.
