India Will Reach Paris Agreement Targets Ahead of 2030: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday has been awarded with Cambridge Energy Research Associates Week (CERAWeek) Global Energy & Environment Leadership Award for commitment to energy sustainability, environment.

Thanking the award, PM Modi said, “It is with great humility that I accept CERAweek Global Energy & Environment Leadership Award. I dedicate this award to the people of our great motherland India. I dedicate this award to the glorious tradition of our land that has shown the way when it comes to caring for the environment.”

After accepting the award, Modi said climate change and calamity are major challenges facing the world. He added that the country is on track to achieving its climate goals well before the target date as it switches over to energy-efficient mediums and uses waste to generate energy.

“India is well on track to achieve its Paris agreement targets well before the target date of 2030,” he said.

PM stressed over the target of mixing 20 percent ethanol has been advanced to 2025, 5,000 compressed bio-gas plants will be set up to turn municipal and agriculture waste into energy. He further said that the use of energy-efficient LED bulbs has helped save 38 million tonnes of carbon emissions.

Sharing the numbers of non-fossil sources in India’s installed capacity of electricity has grown to 38 percent, PM said India is working to increase the share of natural gas, which is environment friendly and less polluting, in the energy basket from the current 6-15 percent by 2030.

He also mentioned of recently launched National Hydrogen Mission and equitable and decentralized model of solar energy generation.

India has maintained that it is not a polluter and cause of climate change and has voluntarily committed to reducing greenhouse gas emission intensity of its GDP by 33-35 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

He concluded “now is the time to think logically and ecologically. After all, this is not about me or you. It is about our planet’s future. We owe this to our coming generations.