In March this year, India’s Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Prakash Javadekar, said in Rajya Sabha that India is the only country among the G20 nations to be fulfilling the Paris Climate Agreement commitments, particularly those relating to renewable energy and afforestation.
Countries like the United States and China, which have talked much about green energy and presented policies to become carbon neutral, are lagging behind the goals set in the Paris Climate Agreement. Russia and many other countries, including Europe which preaches every other day about climate change and the responsibility of people, organisations around the world, have not walked the talk on Paris climate Agreement.
Now the organisations and individuals around the world are recognising the contribution of India. “#India has 16% of the World population. Still it is the only big country on track with the #Paris_climate_goals,” said Fone Stoelinga, former Dutch Ambassador to India.
Previously, Prime Minister Modi also announced that India is going to increase its renewable energy capacity beyond 175 GW from the present 80 GW by 2022 with the ultimate goal of reaching 450 GW shortly. India later revised its foal and aimed at reaching 225 GW by 2022 itself – a sign of India’s success in its relentless pursuit of moving towards a cleaner future. The government plans to spend $ 50 billion on the ambitious Jal Jeevan mission which focuses on rainwater harvesting, water conservation and development of water resources.
India had a ministry for non-conventional energy sources since 1992, but things only picked up pace after the Narendra Modi government took over in 2014 as the government extensively focused on sustainable growth which has resulted in the country’s renewable energy capacity registering a compound annual growth rate of over 20%. The Modi government’s focus on renewable sources of energy has certainly yielded results as India’s solar capacity currently stands at nearly 30 GW, up from 2.6 GW in 2014 and in the same period, Wind capacity has shot up to over 36 GW from 21 GW.
The Indian Renewable Energy sector will also lead to the creation of millions of jobs and according to the International Labour Organisation, the sector is slated to create around 330,000 new jobs by 2022 and more than 24 million new jobs by 2030. The sustained focus on renewable energy will also reduce dependence on fossil fuels and, thus, India will be able to attain energy security. It is refreshing to see the Central government, with the special focus of Prime minister Narendra Modi, combining sustainability with development and focusing on long-term goals which are the need of the hour.
India is the only powerful country complying with the Paris accord. Every nation is simply busy working on their own economies and strengthening them, with little to no concern about the climate. Countries like Brazil, Turkey, the United States, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, etc are members of the G20. Also, a member of the powerful body is China. Now India should instead focus on preaching to bigger countries, which emit more and have larger carbon footprints, to start behaving themselves.