Top US official John Kerry, appriciated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his commitment to addressing the challenge posed by climate change which the Biden Administration believes poses an existential threat to humanity. While addressing the World Sustainable Development Summit 2021 John Kerry said that he was “heartened” to see that India’s 2021 Budget focused heavily on clean energy sources. “By 2030, the International Energy Agency forecasts that if India drives even more aggressively towards this clean energy transition, it will create half a million additional jobs than business as usual would create. Indian industry is obviously already stepping up and showing leadership.” he said.
Kerry mentioned that “India is actually a red hot investment opportunity for its clean energy transition.” Looking forward to visiting India soon again, he added that the prime minister has made a very important contribution to this dialogue, India is deeply committed to his challenge and it has been for a considerable number of years. “You are indisputably a world leader in the deployment of renewable energy and your leadership of the International Solar Alliance, is absolutely critical for not just India but for other dynamic and growing economies in the world he added.
In November last year, Modi said that India had set a target of cutting down its carbon footprint by 30% to 35% and increasing the use of natural gas. However, he did not elaborate on a timeline for this. Prime Minister Modi’s announcement of a target of 450 gigawatts of renewables by 2030 is a strong, example of how to power a growing economy with clean energy.
Kerry said that he intends to work “very, very closely with” with India to address climate change challenges. Modi and Biden had also discussed the matter earlier during their interaction.
