MUMBAI, Feb. 18 -- Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday positioned Mumbai as a potential climate finance gateway for the Global South, calling for trillions of dollars in investments to build sustainable infrastructure across energy, transport, urban systems and climate adaptation. Speaking at the inaugural session of India's first citizen-led Mumbai Climate Week (MCW) at the Jio Convention Centre, Fadnavis invited global institutions to partner with the state government in creating scalable climate transition models that can be replicated across emerging economies. MCW is led by NGO Project Mumbai and supported by the Maharashtra government, its Environment and Climate Change Department, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Organisers described it as the first such citizen-led climate platform in the Global South. "The scale of climate transition required globally and in developing economies cannot be funded by public budgets alone. It requires catalytic capital. It requires blended finance. It requires innovative risk-sharing frameworks. It requires patient capital for early-stage technologies. And it requires confidence in execution," Fadnavis said. Addressing representatives from multilateral institutions, financial firms and philanthropy networks, he said Mumbai's deep financial markets, strong regulatory institutions and growing green finance platforms place the city in a unique position. "If climate capital must flow at scale, Mumbai is ready to become a medium for that flow," he said. Calling climate change "today's governance challenge", Fadnavis underscored its direct human impact. "When Mumbai experiences extreme rainfall, it is not a statistic. It is trains halted, homes flooded. When heatwaves intensify, it is not a graph on a presentation. It is construction workers, street vendors and farmers facing real hardship. In a dense coastal megacity like Mumbai, the financial nerve centre of India, climate change is today's governance challenge," he said. He added that while climate finance is crucial for enabling a green transition, climate justice must remain central to the global discourse. "Developing economies are building infrastructure for the first time at scale. We must build it sustainably. But we must also build it affordably and rapidly. The Global South must not be forced into a choice between growth and responsibility," he said. Highlighting Maharashtra's renewable energy push, Fadnavis said India added 55 gigawatts (GW) to its 552 GW installed capacity in a single year, the fastest expansion to date, with 75% of the additions coming from renewable sources. "I am proud to say most of this has come from Maharashtra," he said. He said the state currently has around 48 GW of installed capacity, of which 21% is renewable. "By 2030, when we approach 84 GW installed capacity, more than 50% will be from green and clean sources," he said, citing plans to scale green hydrogen, electric mobility, biofuels and sustainable infrastructure. On the sidelines of the event, MMRDA signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme and Memorandums of Understanding with C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, World Resources Institute India, ICLEI- Local Governments for Sustainability and Urban Land Institute India. At the event, Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Prahlad Joshi announced 100,000 additional solar pumps for Maharashtra under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha Evam Utthan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM) scheme. State Environment and Climate Change Minister Pankaja Munde said the impact of climate change is visible across Maharashtra, including increased flooding and urban heat in Mumbai, along with rising air quality concerns. "In rural Maharashtra, we are also witnessing droughts and flooding, which indicate that the environment is not being taken care of. MCW is designed to create employment, financial pathways and climate action," she said. Over three days, MCW will host heads of government, global and Indian business leaders, climate innovators, philanthropies, youth representatives and community voices, with the aim of shifting climate dialogue towards implementation. More than 100 institutions and 400 speakers, including Hillary Clinton, Sachin Tendulkar, and cosmonauts Rakesh Sharma and Shubhanshu Shukla, are expected to be present....