Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi along with the President of France Francois Hollande launched an worldwide alliance of over 120 countries. The initiative was described by Modi as his “long cherished dream”.
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Civil society groups, reportedly backed by some developing countries, said they were being barred from attending the meetings of so-called spin-off groups.
Amar Singh Sawhney, a member of EcoSikh’s Board of Directors and CEO of Boston-based Ocular Therapeutix Inc, said there is a cost to using fossil fuel-based energy that goes beyond global warming and its catastrophic climate change implications.
“The principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities must remain the bedrock of our collective enterprise”, Modi said, adding that there should be aggressive mitigative action by developed countries by 2020.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has hinted at deeper engagements with India in the coming months.
Chief Minister Modi shook palms, sat down and talked to Sharif for a couple of minutes in Paris on Monday on the sidelines 21st session of the conference of parties (COP21).
“India brought the most significant and game-changing announcement of the day with plans for a new solar alliance to provide solar energy access to the poor”, said WWF Global Climate and Energy Initiative leader Samantha Smith.
“We want to bring solar energy into lives and homes by making it cheaper, more reliable and easier to connect to the grid”. “This will enable developed and developing countries to work together to attract investments and technologies in the solar energy area”, he said.
The agreement at the summit “must lead us to restore the balance between humanity and Nature and between what we have inherited and what we will leave behind”, he said. The Prime Minister announced that India is set to add 100 Gigawatt of energy to be obtained through solar power by the year 2022. Earlier this year, the much-hyped security adviser-level talks between the two countries were cancelled after India insisted Kashmir should not be included in the agenda, with Pakistan maintaining it will not accept any pre-conditions.
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“Climate justice means developing countries should have enough room to grow”, the prime minister said. Modi’s government said in October that it would need $2.5 trillion by 2030 to make good on its Paris pledge – and that doesn’t even have India cutting emissions, but rather reducing the amount of pollution per unit of economic growth.
