Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on Sunday said India is increasingly leveraging renewable energy to fuel its growing power consumption as it scales programmes like Aatmanirbhar Bharat.
India has only 3% contribution in the historical emissions and that the US, Europe and other regions have contributed more to harmful emissions over the last 150 years, the Minister said at Amazon Smbhav event.”Though we are not part of the problem, we want to be part of the solution. Even today’s current emissions of the world, we are only 7 per cent of the world emissions…our programmes for Aatmanirbhar Bharat, for development growth are based on sustainability, energy transition, industrial transition, building common resilient infrastructure, disaster resilient infrastructure,” he said.
He added that India has taken the lead in not only discussions about climate change but also to show the world how these changes can be implemented.
Javadekar said the country has taken a number of steps towards embracing sustainable energy, and solar energy production has grown 14-fold over the last six years.
“We have reduced our emission intensity by nearly 26 per cent. We have increased our share to 38 per cent of renewable energy in our energy capacity mix…solar energy and renewable energy all put together, we have now 136 gigawatt, we’re inching towards our goal of 175 gigawatts by 2022,” he said.
India has set up a larger target of having 450 GW of renewable energy by 2030.
Also, under Fame I and II programmes, subsidy to the tune of ₹10,000 crore has been given for deploying 6,500 electrical buses in 65 cities.”…in 25 cities, they are running. Other cities are in the advanced process of purchasing. So, they are sustainable, modern as well as the best possible zero pollution, zero emission vehicles,” he added. Javadekar said India will require more energy as that is the basic input of the growth.”But as of today, our per capita consumption per year is 1,200 kilowatts units of electricity. Many countries – America, Europe has more than 12,000 kilowatts per year…We don’t consume that much electricity, but our electricity consumption will grow because there are aspirations for development,” he said.
India has started building simultaneously a sustainable way of life through renewable energy programme, he added.
The Minister also pointed out that private enterprises in the country are also playing a part and have set goals for a sustainable future by adding more green cover on the campus, utilising more renewable energy and lowering emissions.
