London: India on Tuesday (June 28) called on the developed world to step up the scope, scale and speed of climate finance for the developing world to help tackle the crisis of climate change. Addressing a Climate Finance and Technology Summit in London, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav highlighted the milestones achieved by India in the field of climate action on “mission mode”.
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“For the developing countries, adaptation finance is important, and the USD 100bn finance goal must be fulfilled by the developed world. And this climate finance must address the three essential Ss – scope, scale and speed,” said Mr Yadav, in a virtual interaction from New Delhi.
Climate change is not some disaster waiting for us in the future, but it’s our current reality. India is relying mainly on domestic resources to implement adaptation and mitigation action on mission mode, he said.
The minister was addressing a session on what green recovery looks like for India as part of UK-India Week, where he also reiterated India’s commitment to its green goals ahead of COP27 scheduled in Egypt later this year.
I would like Indian companies to raise green finance in the UK. We should also encourage universities to work on this and exchange their PhD students, said UK Investment Minister Lord Gerry Grimstone.
“When you have new technologies, having government-to-government backing is a good thing. It raises confidence that both countries are committed to it. The governments should set the framework and companies should take advantage of that,” the minister said, during a session on Investing in a Green Future.
The IGF summit, organised by UK-headquartered India Global Forum (IGF) at Bloomberg in London, brought together policymakers and industry leaders from India and the UK to deliberate on the role that technology, finance and sustainability initiatives can play in leveraging the India-UK relationship to achieve lasting solutions.
Prime Minister Modi is very committed to the issue of climate action. There’s a real commitment on the part of the Indian government to work with the UK on climate goals, said UK Cabinet Minister Alok Sharma, President of the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow last year.
“At COP26, we managed to get almost 200 countries to agree to a historic climate pact at COP26 because every country saw it’s in their own self-interest to act. If I look at the scorecard, yes there’s been progress, but we really need to speed up for COP27 at Sharm El-Sheikh,” the British Indian minister said.
The summit, which marks Day 2 of UK-India Week in London, also included interventions by spiritualist Sadhguru and panels involving software major Infosys and companies active in the field of green energy.
“As a generation, we face a challenge, but we have the privilege and opportunity to turn things around too,” said Sadhguru, as he highlighted his Save Soil campaign.
The UK-India Week is organised by IGF annually as a cross-sector exchange covering areas such as trade, finance, healthcare, technology and innovation.
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(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
NDTV – Dettol have been working towards a clean and healthy India since 2014 via the Banega Swachh India initiative, which is helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan. The campaign aims to highlight the inter-dependency of humans and the environment, and of humans on one another with the focus on One Health, One Planet, One Future – Leaving No One Behind. It stresses on the need to take care of, and consider, everyone’s health in India – especially vulnerable communities – the LGBTQ population, indigenous people, India’s different tribes, ethnic and linguistic minorities, people with disabilities, migrants, geographically remote populations, gender and sexual minorities. In wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the need for WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) is reaffirmed as handwashing is one of the ways to prevent Coronavirus infection and other diseases. The campaign will continue to raise awareness on the same along with focussing on the importance of nutrition and healthcare for women and children, fight malnutrition, mental wellbeing, self care, science and health, adolescent health & gender awareness. Along with the health of people, the campaign has realised the need to also take care of the health of the eco-system. Our environment is fragile due to human activity, which is not only over-exploiting available resources, but also generating immense pollution as a result of using and extracting those resources. The imbalance has also led to immense biodiversity loss that has caused one of the biggest threats to human survival – climate change. It has now been described as a “code red for humanity.” The campaign will continue to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and sanitation workers and menstrual hygiene. Banega Swasth India will also be taking forward the dream of Swasth Bharat, the campaign feels that only a Swachh or clean India where toilets are used and open defecation free (ODF) status achieved as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, can eradicate diseases like diahorrea and the country can become a Swasth or healthy India.
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