India's G20 Presidency apt to address global climate change: Rockefeller's Shah

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the right global leader at the right time to bring about global solidarity to address climate change in a meaningful way, says Rajiv J. Shah, President, US-based philanthropy, The Rockefeller Foundation.

In an interaction during his ongoing visit to India, Shah says India’s G20 Presidency offers a unique opportunity to put in place real solutions for climate financing that recognise the financing needs of developing and emerging economies to develop climate resilient infrastructure. "India has a plan to develop its economy and become a high income country by 2047 and that plan demonstrates that you need large amounts of long dated concessional capital to invest in the kind of economic infrastructure to achieve that outcome. And very few, if any, of the current (global financial institutions), provide that kind of resources," says Shah. Hence he considers this year (G20 Presidency year) as "an incredible opportunity for India to lead the G20 to develop solutions for the global climate and the government finance and lead the challenge in investing in renewable electrification, to make lives better for people across the economic spectrum."  

According to Shah, addition of liquidity from institutions at a concessional cost for a long period of time can happen only through a set of reforms that includes extending the IMF (International Monetary Fund) debt sustainability analysis from five years to a much longer time horizon. "Leveraging the multilateral development banks more aggressively, will bring in hundreds of billions of dollars of additional liquidity. Creation of instruments like the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP, an alliance of philanthropy, local entrepreneurs, governments, and technology, policy, and financing partners) that blend public, private and philanthropic capital is needed. India's G20 Presidency is an opportunity to highlight and propose viable public private investment-oriented solutions for climate finance," he says.

Later, Shah tweeted that he discussed ideas about renewable energy and new approaches in agriculture to lift families and communities. He reiterated The Rockefeller Foundation’s commitment to bolster its long-standing partnership with the people of India in a meeting with Prime Minister Modi. Shah also tweeted that he discussed about India's leadership in climate action, the country's G20 Presidency and hopes for global economic reforms, and Rockefeller Foundation’s work to unlock the potential of renewable energy during his meeting with External Affairs minister S. Jaishankar too.

On March 15, The Rockefeller Foundation had announced that its President Rajiv J. Shah, along with leaders of the Foundation’s Power & Climate and Asia Regional Office teams, will meet with senior government and private sector officials in New Delhi and Mumbai. "The Rockefeller Foundation team will reinforce their support for India’s renewable energy innovation efforts and leadership on international financial institutions reforms, which can unlock much-needed investment into climate and sustainable development solutions in India and the world. They will also travel to witness a range of efforts being undertaken to build climate resilience around the country," the Foundation had stated.