Developed Nations Must Finance Green Projects in Low-Income Countries: PM Modi

He suggested that developed countries should contribute one per cent of their GDP to the climate cause.

Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/@MEAIndia)

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, 31 October, while addressing G20 members during a summit on climate change, emphasised that developed countries of the world must finance the climate projects of developing and undeveloped countries, The Wire reported.

Insisting that his country could not ignore how the matter of climate finance has been ignored by developed countries, he insisted that they should take the lead in funding green projects in lower-income countries by contributing at least one per cent of their GDP to the climate cause.

By neglecting climate justice, the prime minister said that the world is "not only doing injustice to the developing countries" but also "betraying entire humanity".

Putting pressure on developing countries without providing them adequate financial assistance is an injustice itself, he added.

More than a decade ago, at the Copenhagen Summit, it was agreed upon that by the year 2020, developed countries shall provide $100 billion dollars of aid to developing and underdeveloped countries to assist their climate projects.

That promise hasn't been met.

On the issue of climate finance, the Indian prime minister put forth three suggestions for the G20 countries:

• A 'clean energy projects fund' should be established to assist those countries whose emissions are yet to peak.

• A network of clean-energy research institutions should be set up in each of the 20 countries.

• The 20 should collaborate to create an institution that would create global standards in the field of green hydrogen in order to encourage production and use.

He assured the audience that India will also participate in these initiatives.

"When we announced our goals in Paris, many asked whether India would be able to do something like (creating) 175 GW of renewable energy. But India is not only rapidly achieving these goals but is also busy setting higher targets," he said, as quoted by NDTV.

He added that India has set a target of 26 million hectares of wasteland rehabilitation and that it is "working on the target of 20 percent ethanol blending in petrol by 2025."

(With inputs from The Wire and NDTV)