Under G20 presidency, 'green growth' priority for India: Bhupender Yadav

Under the G20 Presidency, the concept of ‘green growth’ being a priority area validates how sustainable development has been mainstreamed in the Indian policy, said Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Bhupender Yadav, on Friday.

He was delivering keynote address on Visionary Leadership for Mainstreaming Sustainable Development and Climate Resilience at the inaugural session of the World Sustainable Development Summit 2023 held in New Delhi.

Highlighting the provisions of Union Budget 2023 – 2024 presented in Parliament earlier this month, Yadav said that it lays down the vision for ‘Green Growth’ across multiple sectors, with the underlying thought being that all future growth in the country has to essentially be green.

"With the concept of ‘Green Growth’ being a priority area in the Union Budget, it validates how sustainable development has been mainstreamed in Indian policy making process through a visionary approach", said Shri Yadav.

India has already submitted its Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategy document at COP 27 in Sharm El Sheikh which is premised on two major pillars of climate justice and sustainable lifestyles alongside principles of CBDR-RC. With this India has joined the list of 58 countries who have submitted their new or updated LT-LEDS.

India has also created and nurtured the CDRI or Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure.  India has been making concerted efforts to engage various stakeholder institutions and individuals to promote innovation and resilience in infrastructure.

While highlighting the key impediments in the global vision to achieve Green Hydrogen development at a large size and scale for decarbonisation India's G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant has said, “lack of long-term funding and bottlenecks in free trade are hampering our goals”

He added that the developed countries have not lived up to its commitment of $100 billion funding per year and the world needs long-term institutional financing and new instruments like blended finance, credit enhancement, first loss guarantees etc. to be able to produce Green Hydrogen.

UAE's climate envoy and designated president of the COP28 summit said on Wednesday that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will explore all partnership opportunities with India to help the south Asian country's growth and low carbon plans.

"India's goal of adding 500 gigawatts of clean energy in the next seven years is a powerful statement of intent," Sultan al-Jaber told the World Sustainable Development Summit.

"As one of the largest investors in renewables, the UAE will explore all opportunities for partnership with India," UAE envoy said.