Ahead of climate talks at end of this month in Paris, Power Minister Piyush Goyal today said India's stand for carbon justice and the country's development imperative must be recognised.
"India stands for carbon justice. Our development imperative must be recognised," Goyal told reporter here at an event to mark the distribution of three crore LED bulbs under government's flagship initiative, the Domestic Efficient Lighting Programme (DELP).
The UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21) is scheduled from November 30 to December 11.
Goyal said, "We are far more better than other countries who have used low cost energy as a tool to develop their nation. So, it is very obvious that India will stand for climate justice. We believe that the carbon space will be vacated by the developed world and India's development imperative has to be recognised."
The minister is of the view that India is not the polluter and also not responsible for the agony the world is facing today.
Elaborating further, he said, "In fact, the statistics you see in the last 150 years, it is the United State which has contributed nearly 18 per cent of the carbon emissions in the atmosphere. Europe has added another 21 per cent and China has added about 10 per cent."
"India's share in Carbon emission is probably two and half per cent. Now, we are home to one-fifth of the population of the world. When you juxtapose our carbon emission on per capita basis, we are one-fifteenth of many of the developed world."
About India's commitment on climate change, he said, "India has demonstrated (its commitment) through its thrust on energy efficiency and by embarking upon world, larger renewable energy programme and making our renewable energy capacity 175 GW by 2022."
He pointed out that the world recognise India's large investments in renewable energy, green corridors and other measures.
"The Prime Minister is not looking at climate change and environment, as something he has to do as a compulsion but truly for as an article of faith for him and his government," the minister added.
On the recent development of renewable energy provider SunEdison's move to sell solar projects in India, Goyal explained, "SunEdison wants to sell these projects under certain business model. Why should we have any objection."
He explained that the companies take up project at the time of construction and develop it with high risk and later sell it at higher profits which is their business model.
He further said that pension funds and other investors look for annuity projects with a period of 25 years like power plants, toll road projects and water supply projects which ensure definitive annual returns.
Under the Power System Development Fund scheme, government
provides financial support to SGPs to buy imported gas.
However, in Sunday's auction, the bidders were allowed to quote negative gas subsidy or premium for booking gas quantities they need.
Now, government will save Rs 1,829 crore for providing gas under PSDF to nine SGPs for six months till September.
The outlay for the support from PSDF was fixed at Rs 7,500 crore (Rs 3,500 crore and Rs 4,000 crore for 2015-16 and 2016-17, respectively).
Addressing the event, Goyal said, "India is poised for decadal double digit growth in the days to come and is poised to become a superpower with a billion plus happy people.
"India has the potential to transform and can move into the big league very rapidly if we leverage the economies of scale, bring in greater degrees of transparency and monitor work that has been undertaken.
However, adding the caveat of the need to ensure equal opportunities for people at the bottom of the pyramid, Goyal said, "We cannot become a super economic power unless the person at the bottom of the pyramid gets equal opportunity to study, to be skilled and has the opportunity to move towards a better quality of life.
"To my mind, lack of electricity access in villages across the country is a serious concern for us as a nation. There are about 50 million homes which don't have access to electricity.
"In Arunachal Pradesh, there are about
808 villages which
lack electricity access. While we are now working on building a grid in Sikkim and Arunachal, it will take time. Hence, we are looking at off-grid solutions in the interim.
