The aim is to move towards a fossil-free future and keep global temperatures from rising above 2°C by end of century
The biggest development on tackling climate change since the Paris Accord of 2015 has been the International Solar Alliance, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the inaugural session of the World Sustainable Development Summit. “India and France initiated the International Solar Alliance. It already has 121 members [countries] and is perhaps the single most important global achievement since the Paris Agreement of 2015,” he told a crowd of students, ministers and delegates from 40 countries. “While the world was discussing Inconvenient Truth [a reference to the 2006 documentary on global warming] we translated it into Convenient Action,” he added.
The International Solar Alliance (ISA) that aims at increasing solar energy deployment in member countries, came into legal, independent existence in December and is the first treaty-based international intergovernmental organisation to be based out of India.
The ISA aims to mobilise more than $1000 billion in investments by 2030 for “massive deployment” of solar energy, pave the way for future technologies adapted to the needs of moving to a fossil-free future and keep global temperatures from rising above 2°C by the end of the century. India has committed itself to having 175,000 MW of renewed energy in the grid by 2022.
Creating corpus
As part of the agreement, India will contribute $27 million (₹175.5 crore approximately) to the ISA for creating corpus, building infrastructure and recurring expenditure over five years from 2016-17 to 2020-21. In addition, public sector undertakings of the Government of India, Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) and Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA), have made a contribution of $1 million (₹6.5 crore) each for creating the ISA corpus fund.
The ISA was launched on November 30, 2015 in Paris, on the sidelines of COP-21, the UN climate conference.
India on track
India was well on track to meeting its responsibilities to mitigate the impact of climate change. “The United Nations Environmental Programme had in 2014 ranked India as among the top countries with the greenest consumption pattern,” he added, “ Our programmes such as the Namami Gange [Clean Ganga Mission] have already begun to show results.”
The ₹ 20,000-crore programme to clean up the river has so far managed to spend only about a tenth of that amount on treating the river.
Source: thehindu
