Green miles to go and promises to keep
The world gathers for yet another pow-wow at the climate conference in Glasgow. What can we expect to gain ...
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has placed India in a position where it can guide the world in dealing with the crisis of climate change, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said here on Friday.
Yadav, who is in Glasgow for the 26th international climate conference COP 26, said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has placed India in a position where the country has come to guide the world in dealing with the crisis of climate change,” Yadav said.
“While at the Paris Climate Conference, the Prime Minister had urged the world to increase forest area, decrease carbon emission and encourage alternative sources of energy, at the ongoing COP26, he took the pledge of Panchamrit or five-nectar elements in India’s fight against climate change,” Yadav shared in his blog ‘COP 26 Diary’.
“The Panchamrit commitment seeks to raise India’s non-fossil fuel-based energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030, ensure that 50 per cent of the country’s energy requirements would be met by renewable energy sources by the same year, reduce the total projected carbon emission by one billion tonnes, decrease the carbon intensity of the economy to less than 45 per cent and finally, achieve net zero emissions by 2070,” he said.
The environment minister attended a side-event organised by the International Solar Alliance (ISA) on Thursday and reiterated the Prime Minister’s vision. He said he emphasised the fact that “we must return to the Sun to save the Earth. As the world progresses to achieve newer heights economically and socially, solar energy will power the transition.”
‘Global solar grid’
Earlier at Glasgow, the ISA, India Presidency of the ISA, and the UK COP Presidency unveiled plans for the first international network of global interconnected solar power grids, known as the “Green Grids Initiative”. “At the side event, I stated that sustainable development and climate change mitigation is at the heart of the Green Grids Initiative and that the scale of the project could very well make it the next biggest modern engineering marvel,” he said.
The project aims to reduce reliance on non-renewable energy such as coal by enabling and popularising the use of affordable solar power from other countries. The announcement was accompanied by the “One Sun” declaration, which has been endorsed by 83 ISA member countries.