Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Friday discussed how India has progressed in the energy sector. “India has made rapid strides in the development of solar and wind energy, and is now eager to accelerate in the nuclear sector,” said PM Modi in an interaction with Gates.
The Prime Minister also told Gates how India is looking to accelerate in the nuclear sector. “Our efforts are concentrated on fast-tracking solar and wind energy, but now we also want to accelerate in the nuclear sector. Similarly, our efforts also extended to making significant progress in Green Hydrogen,” said PM Modi, adding that the government had recently launched a Green Hydrogen-powered boat service in Tamil Nadu. “We also plan to launch this environment-friendly, pollution-free boat for tourists travelling from Kashi to Ayodhya. This will also support the Clean Ganga movement,” Modi said. The G20 Summit, hosted by India last year, also concluded with a call for tripling renewable energy capacities by 2030, which was later announced at COP28 in UAE.
The two conversed on a range of topics including technology innovation, Artificial Intelligence, Digital India, and climate action also featured on top of the agenda. The US businessman and former CEO of Microsoft said that the world will probably miss the 1.5°C target of limiting global warming and even the “2°C goal is not going to be easy.”
Over 195 countries including India and the US had signed the Paris Accord in 2015 to limit the rise of global temperature increase to well below 2°C while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C. However, the world already temporarily breached the 1.5°C target last year which also ended up as the hottest year on record globally.
The Prime Minister said that it is time the world looks at a new concept of ‘Green GDP’ within the overall GDP. “We should change the terminology of development. All growth-metrics are anti-climate, it’s about steel consumption or per capita electricity consumption. But it’s time we develop a concept of Green GDP (Gross Domestic Product) within the overall GDP, for example how many of the total jobs (employment) are green,” said PM Modi.
Gates also pressed on the need to make green technologies cost-effective for easy adoption. “If it’s expensive, then the question is who will pay. Should the rich countries pay? It is not right to tell India to not build basic infrastructure just because the West had those emissions, but there is need for adaptation, because there will be some warming which farmers will have to take into account,” he said.
Modi said the government has been promoting technology innovation in sunrise sectors through Rs 1 lakh corpus fund to youth and interest-free loan for up to 50 years to work on upcoming, futuristic technologies. “We have also launched Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) for encouraging sustainable lifestyles,” he said, also highlighting India’s rich story of being environment-friendly, as well as push for reuse and recycle, which the government intends to promote.
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