The World Sustainable Development Summit commenced on February 19, 2018 at the Indian Habitat Centre in Delhi
The World Sustainable Development Summit commenced on February 19, 2018 at the Indian Habitat Centre in Delhi.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed delegates at the Summit’s inaugural session, which includes students and ministers from 40 countries.
Modi stated that the Indian government would continue to ensure that the benefits of good governance reached everyone and that economic development would be carried out without detriment to the environment.
He highlighted the International Solar Alliance (ISA), co-launched by India and France in November 2015 on the sidelines of the UN climate conference COP-21, as the single biggest development in tackling climate change since the 2015 Pairs Accord.
The ISA aims to increase solar energy deployment in member countries through the mobilisation of more than US$1,000 billion in investments by 2030, in order to pave the way for a fossil-free future in which global temperatures are kept from rising above 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
India, as part of the agreement, will contribute $27 million for the creation of corpus, recurring expenditure and building infrastructure between 2016 and 2021.
The ISA has 121 members and is the first treaty-based international intergovernmental organisation to be based in India, according to the Indian PM.
India has set ambitious targets in order to meet its commitments under The Paris Agreement, including a Nationally Determined Contribution commitment to reduce the emission intensity of its GDP by 35% between 2005 and 2030 and a pledge to have 150,000 MW of renewed energy in the national grid by 2022.
It was also announced that India will host World Environment Day on June 5, 2018, under the theme “Beat Plastic Pollution”.
In January 2017, Delhi announced a total ban on disposable, single-use plastic in an effort to reduce the level of plastic waste sent to land fill.
In 2013, the Central Pollution Control Board estimated that the Indian population throws out 15,342 metric tonnes of plastic waste every day, of which about 60% is recycled, with Delhi alone accounting for 9,600 tonnes daily.
Modi called the Alliance “perhaps the single most important global achievement since the Paris Agreement of 2015”.
He added: While the world was discussing Inconvenient Truth, we translated it into Convenient Action.”
The term “Inconvenient Truth” is a reference to the 2006 documentary on global warming.
