India’s energy needs are expected to double in the next 20 years and denying people this energy would be the equivalent of denying life to millions, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his inaugural address at the World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS) on Wednesday.
“Energy requirements of the people of India are expected to nearly double in the next twenty years. Denying this energy would be denying life itself to millions. Successful climate actions also need adequate financing. For this, developed countries need to fulfil their commitments on finance and technology transfer,” he said during his address.
“We firmly believe in fulfilling all our commitments made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). We have also raised our ambitions during CoP26 at Glasgow… I firmly believe, and I am sure you would agree, that environmental sustainability can only be achieved through climate justice. Sustainability requires co-ordinated action for the global commons,” PM Modi said.
“We have heard people call our planet fragile. But it is not the planet that is fragile. It is us. We are fragile. Our commitments to the planet, to nature, have also been fragile. A lot has been said over the last 50 years, since the 1972 Stockholm Conference. Very little has been done. But in India, we have walked the talk.”
Speaking at the Glasgow climate summit on November 1 last year, PM Modi announced that India’s non-fossil energy capacity will reach 500GW by 2030, meeting 50% of the country’s energy requirements by then. He said that India will reduce its total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes by 2030, reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 45% by 2030, over 2005 levels, and achieve net-zero emissions by 2070.
Modi also added in Glasgow that such ambitious action will be impossible without adequate climate finance from developed nations, calling on rich countries to make $1 trillion available as climate finance “as soon as possible.”
On Wednesday, he said equitable energy access to the poor has been a cornerstone of India’s environmental policy. Through Ujjwala Yojana, more than 90 million households have been provided access to clean cooking fuel, he said. And under the PM-KUSUM scheme, “we have taken renewable energy to the farmers,” he added. The PM also referred to India’s LED bulb distribution scheme, that has been running for over seven years , and has helped save more than 220 billion units of electricity, and reduced 180 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year.
India is a mega-diverse country. With 2.4% of the world’s land area, it accounts for nearly 8% of the world’s species, PM Modi said adding that the International Union for Conservation of Nature has recently recognised India’s efforts. The Aravali Biodiversity Park in Gurugram was recognised an “other effective area-based conservation measures (OECM) site” for effective conservation of biodiversity by IUCN.
He ended his address by saying that as part of its efforts to combat the climate crisis, India has initiated the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) which aims to build strong infrastructure in areas prone to frequent natural disasters. On the sidelines of CoP26, India also launched an initiative called “Infrastructure for Resilient Island States” for vulnerable island nations. “To these two initiatives, we now add LIFE – Lifestyle For Environment. LIFE is about making lifestyle choices to improve our planet. LIFE will be a coalition of like-minded people across the world who will promote sustainable lifestyles. I call them 3Ps – Pro Planet People. This global movement of Pro Planet People (3-Ps) is the Coalition for LIFE. These three global coalitions will form the trinity of our environment efforts for improving the global commons,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav held a meeting with representatives of several environmental think tanks and experts on how to take the concept of LIFE forward to bring the idea of sustainable lifestyles to the centre of global discussions on climate crisis.
The PM’s comments are significant because IPCC is expected to publish its working group II (WG II) report on impacts and adaptation to the climate crisis on February 28. Compared to its previous IPCC reports WG II will have more general and local information with focus on natural, social and economic sciences. During the next two weeks policymakers from 196 countries along with 270 scientists from 67 countries will scrutinise the summary for policymakers (SPM) of the report line by line following which the report will be released. The report is expected to capture the most vulnerable areas on the planet to climate change; define hard and soft limits to adapting to climate impacts, and highlight how several ecosystems are approaching tipping points.
Yadav, who also addressed the WSDS inaugural organised by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), said “India gave the concept of sustainable lifestyles and climate justice, both of which found a place in the preamble of the Paris Agreement. Subsequently, reaffirming our commitment to the success of the agreement, the honourable Prime Minister has announced steady increases in our domestic efforts to harness solar energy from 22 to 100GW and subsequently to 450GW at the UN Secretary-General’s conference in 2019. India has been in the lead in ramping up ambition to meet the Paris Agreement goals.”
He urged countries to act on the basis of globally agreed rules taking into account the principles of equity and Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (acting on climate change based on national circumstances).
“The Paris Agreement goals cannot be reached unless equity is implemented by all countries staying within their fair share of the global carbon budget. Our goal should be equitable sustainable development and equity in climate actions. Only then, ‘climate justice’ can be achieved,” he said.
John Kerry, US special presidential envoy for climate who spoke during the ministerial section of WSDS, said the climate crisis is the biggest security threat facing the world. “PM Modi to his credit has set the ambitious goal for India – 500GW of renewables must be deployed over the course of next 8-to-10 years. The criticality of achieving that goal is very simple. It’s the only way India itself becomes compliant with the 1.5 degree C goal we ratified at Glasgow recently,” he added, stressing that both developing and developed countries need to be on a 1.5 degree Celsius pathway, which is not the case yet.
“Are we going to tackle the climate crisis? Are we going to be real? To some degree we are trapped in a business-as-usual mode now… in 2022 we have said this has to be the decisive decade,” he said.
Kerry said Glasgow saw countries that accounted for 65% of global GDP committing to plans that are 1.5 degrees compatible. These plans were submitted by Canada, Europe, US, Japan, EU, UK, South Africa etcetera. Countries accounting for the remaining 35%, including some developing countries and some powerful economies are still not there, he added.
Experts said that India’s push towards renewable energy will not only be good for the planet, but also provide economic opportunities.
“India’s growing economy needs energy but that energy is increasingly coming from renewable sources. This cleaner energy will bring new livelihood opportunities, health benefits and water savings. Of course, as renewable electricity scales up, we will require major investments in energy storage, about $35 billion in this decade alone,” said Ulka Kelkar, director, climate programme, World Resources Institute India.
Source: hindustantimes.com
