Willing to partner with India on its hydrogen goal: COP26 president Alok Sharma
The meeting between COP26 president and India's energy minister also saw discussions on $100 billion Green Climate Fund.
President of the 26th United Nations climate change conference, Alok Sharma met Union power and renewable energy minister Raj Kumar Singh on Tuesday and expressed the willingness of the United Kingdom to collaborate with India on its ambitious green hydrogen project.
Sharma is on a three-day India visit at the moment to deliberate on climate action with ministers, industry leaders and representatives of civil society organisations ahead of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26) in Scotland’s Glasgow from October 31.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last week warned in a key report that the planet has only a small window left to prevent the worsening effects of the climate crisis.
Sharma’s pitch for collaborating with India on green hydrogen came close on the heels of Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing during his Independence Day speech the government’s decision to the National Hydrogen Mission, with an aim for India to become the new global hub and an exporter.
Taking to Twitter, Aloke Sharma posted about his meeting with the energy minister as well as industry minister Piyush Goyal and Prime Minister Modi's principal secretary PK Mishra.
The British-Indian lawmaker also raised the issue of phasing out of coal-fired power plants at Tuesday’s meeting, as he praised India for decommissioning 16,369 MW of thermal power units till March this year.
India aims to become a net-zero carbon emitter by 2030 and has set an ambitious target of achieving 450 gigawatts of renewable energy by then.
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The meeting between Sharma and Kumar saw discussions on the need for India to increase storage capacity to optimise the installed renewable energy when India achieves its milestone.
Union minister Singh expressed India's interest in collaborating with the UK on offshore wind. He also stressed the need for the developed and developing countries to work together for bringing down the cost of storage.
India is the only country among G-20 nations whose actions are at par with the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) set by them under the Paris Agreement in 2015.
An official release, accessed by news agency ANI, said negotiators from both India and the UK expressed their willingness to explore the possibility of establishing a Green Climate Fund which could materialise the proposal for climate finance to the tune of $100 billion pledged by the developed countries under the Paris Agreement.