World Needs India To Pursue Its Green Agenda: UN Climate Representative
India not only has the potential to become a net-zero carbon emission country by 2070 but can also support others in achieving their climate change goals, said Rachel Kyte, a member of the United Nations (UN) Secretary General’s high-level advisory group on climate action.
Ms Kyte, who was on a visit to India recently to interact with policymakers, businesses and think tanks about efforts to tackle the climate crisis, says the world will need to make big bets on India as many of the solutions for climate change can originate here.
“India not only has the potential to meet its own climate change goals — becoming a net-zero carbon emission country by 2070 — but also support other countries in achieving their target with adequate foreign investments,” said Ms Kyte, who is also the dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
“India can become a green staging post for the world and the world needs India to pursue its green agenda,” she added.
At the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow in November last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that India will achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2070 and take its non-fossil energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030.
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate, countries agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
According to Ms Kyte, besides pushing the cause of the International Solar Alliance, India is also serious about becoming a hub for manufacturing green hydrogen and green ammonia.
Her conversations with the government’s think tank NITI Aayog and other divisions of the government have underlined the country’s commitment to green hydrogen, she said.
“Everybody I’ve encountered here is thinking about this (green hydrogen). India can become not only a provider of green energy to its own economy, but can also start exporting it,” reiterated Ms Kyte, also an advisor to the UK government for the UN climate negotiations.
However, according to her, this transition to green energy solutions — moving away from coal to renewables, transforming the transportation industry and more — will not be possible without “adequate financing” from the developed world.
The promise of a USD 100 billion package for the developing world “still remains a promise”, she said.
“That’s a totemic promise that had been broken. We need to fulfil the promise,” she underscored.
The developed countries have failed to meet its yearly USD 100 billion support that they had committed in 2009 for climate action by developing countries.