Certain ‘important’ countries have chosen to forgo the agenda of sustainability: Piyush Goyal

Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday lashed out at developed countries, saying that it is unfortunate that “certain important countries” have chosen to forgo the agenda of sustainability.

Goyal, while addressing a sustainability summit organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), did not name the countries directly.

“It’s another matter that the developed world has let us down very badly despite making huge promises at Paris, of ensuring that trillions of dollars would be available in concessional finance or grants to support the efforts of the developing world and less-developed countries. At least $100 billion was committed. But we have yet to see any of those commitments being fulfilled,” Goyal said.

“When one talks to developed countries about these promises, they will introduce you to Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan and say this has to be a public-private initiative. I don’t think any of us needs an introduction from a foreign government to meet JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs or any of these large financing companies,” he rued.

The Union minister said that India has a unique opportunity today to lead the world in sustainability. “We brought sustainability to the fore much before COP21,” he said.

The Paris Agreement adopted at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris in 2015 aims to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

“I remember as renewable energy minister going around the world, trying to raise resources, supposedly at concessional terms, not even one loan was available at even a 10 basis points concession a year,” Goyal said, reminiscing earlier tenure in the renewable energy ministry.

India continues to remain committed to its sustainability goals, the Union minister said, citing an example of lower renewable energy prices in the country. “We were able to bring down the cost of solar power from ₹7-8 to ₹2.41,” he said.

“We used to have situations where in northern India we had excess power but no buyers, and southern India at that time was paying ₹12-13 per kilowatt-hour of power. When it becomes so expensive and half the power you give is free in any case, you usually don’t provide power at all. Huge outages were the order of the day,” Goyal reminisced on his earlier tenure in the power ministry.

“With the national grid becoming one, we are finally in a position to ensure that even down South, power became available at one-fourth the price, from ₹12 to ₹3, even during peak hours,” he stated.

India is looking to more than double its renewable energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030.