Jitendra Singh, who leads India’s joint high-level ministerial delegation of the Ministry of Power, New and Renewable Energy and the Ministry of Science and Technology at the “Global Clean Energy Action Forum-2022″ in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, said that sustainable biofuels play a key role in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transport sector. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently supported and monitored Net Zero efforts.
Dr. Speaking at the Main Stage Summit on ‘International Collaboration to Accelerate Clean Energy Transition’ in Pittsburgh, Jitendra Singh said that India through the Ministry of Biotechnology is promoting R&D innovation in advanced biofuels and waste-to-energy technologies. He also informed the energy ministers of 30 countries participating in the conference that India has set up 5 bioenergy centers with an interdisciplinary team working on advanced sustainable biofuels using modern biotechnological tools.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that in April this year, when India hosted the MI annual meeting in New Delhi, the co-leaders of India and the Netherlands launched the Integrated Biorefineries Mission, which brings together key members, international organizations, the corporate sector, academic institutions and civil society to accelerate innovation renewable fuels, chemicals and materials for a low-carbon future.
At another side event at the ‘India Clean Energy Showcase’ in Pittsburgh, Dr Jitendra Singh said that India, which is one of the founding members of the Clean Energy Ministerial Conference (CEM), will host CEM-14 in 2023 in Bengaluru along with its chairmanship G. -20 in the same year. He said that this will effectively mean holding CEM meetings during the first year of the new third phase (July 2022 to June 2026) to achieve a significant acceleration of clean energy deployment in line with the achievement of its members’ clean energy targets and putting the world on track to achieve clean, affordable and reliable energy for all.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that India is one of the few countries in the world that has proposed a Cooling Action Plan (CAP) with a long-term vision (covering a 20-year period from 2017-18 to 2037-38) that addresses cooling requirements across sectors. He said it will identify possible measures to reduce cooling demand arising in residential and commercial buildings, cold chains, etc., involving aspects of building design and technological innovation that do not reduce energy efficiency.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that India is at the forefront of addressing the global challenge of climate change and has committed to ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to reduce emissions intensity by 33-35% in 2030 from 2005 levels. That India remained steadfast in its clean energy transition and has achieved the fastest rate of renewable capacity addition of any major economy and the ambitious transition targets articulated by Prime Minister Modi in India’s Panchamrit Declaration at COP26.
The minister also reiterated that India is also implementing the world’s largest renewable energy (RE) development program, which envisages a five-fold increase in the country’s total renewable energy capacity from 32 GW in 2014 to 175 GW by 2022 and further to 500 GW of renewable energy in the country by 2030. Dr Jitendra Singh said as seen in recent climate negotiations, both governments and non-governmental actors are committed to helping countries meet their net-zero commitments. But he warned that despite these commitments, the global average temperature is expected to rise to around 2.1°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100.
The minister pointed out that this did not meet the targets set out in the Paris Agreement, which calls for limiting global temperatures to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. He added that in light of this, a key step to bend the global emissions curve becomes imperative, and immediate climate action is particularly critical for the post-pandemic future through the transition to renewable energy sources, which is vital to building a resilient and secure energy system of the future. .
Dr Jitendra Singh concluded by saying that the CEM setup has been able to provide India with a unique opportunity to showcase its contribution towards clean energy development in the country and beyond. He further added that India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world and has witnessed a rapid increase in energy consumption mainly due to rapid economic growth, access to affordable energy, increased industrialization, infrastructure building and other end uses of energy.
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