Pollution target: Modi says on track to achieve goals

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New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the country is on track to achieving its climate goals before the target date as it switches over to energy-efficient mediums and uses waste to generate energy.

Speaking after accepting the 2021 CERAWeek Global Energy & Environment Leadership Award for his commitment to energy sustainability and the environment, Modi said climate change and calamity are major challenges facing the world.

Both are interlinked, and one way to fight them is through policies, laws, rules and orders, and the other is bringing behavioural change, he said, listing measures taken by his government for sustainable energy usage.

While the target of mixing 20% ethanol has been advanced to 2025, 5,000 compressed bio-gas plants will be set up to turn municipal and agriculture waste into energy, he said.

Also, switch over to energy-efficient LED bulbs has helped save 38 million tonnes of carbon emission, he said, adding that the share of non-fossil sources of energy has grown by 38%.

“India is well on track to achieve its Paris agreement targets well before the target date of 2030,” he said.

India has maintained that it is not a polluter and cause of climate change and has voluntarily committed to reducing greenhouse gas emission intensity of its GDP by 33-35 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.