WASHINGTON (CU)_India is a red-hot investment opportunity for its clean energy transition, the US top official on climate change and clean energy said on Thursday (Feb 11).
Speaking during the World Sustainable Development Summit 2021, John Kerry, US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, praised Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his commitment to addressing the challenges posed by climate change, adding that he intends to work “very very closely”, with the Indian leadership including PM Modi and Foreign Minister S Jaishankar.
“India is actually a red-hot investment opportunity for its clean energy transition,” he noted.
“We believe India can be one of the most critical transitional countries in this entire endeavour. I am confident that just as we have worked very closely on any number of issues in these last years, our two nations — the world’s two biggest democracies — have a great deal to gain from joining hands in our global leadership and confronting the climate crisis to meet this moment.”
Kerry, the first official on climate to be inside the US National Security Council, said that he was also “very heartened” by the recent Indian government budget which focused heavily on clean energy, adding that PM Modi’s leadership of the International Solar Alliance “is absolutely critical”, not just for India but also for other dynamic, growing economies.
During his address, the Climate Envoy cited that the Indian Prime Minister’s announcement of a target of 450 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030, as a strong and terrific example of how to power a growing economy with clean energy, especially considering the fact that India is already the third largest emitter in the world behind the United States and China.
Kerry also referred to India’s down payment to clean energy transition, which he said would rank the South Asian country as “the global market leader” in solar and storage by 2040, and this rapid scale-up would mean it is already cheaper to build solar power in India than anywhere else in the world.
“That kind of urgency is exactly what we need in order to confront the crisis that we confront today,” he said.
