Pollution-free Earth is as much in the interest of the developed world as it is of developing nations. India’s minister for power, coal, and new and renewable energy Piyush Goyal conveyed a message on these lines at a panel discussion on catalysing a trillion dollar investment as part of the first sustainable energy for all (SE4ALL) global energy ministerial forum meeting.
The developed world should bear the burden of mitigating pollution as it has been the chief contributor of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the past century-and-a-half. According to the minister, the poor in India cannot be told to pay more for a cleaner planet.
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“For the past 150 years the western world grew, industrialised, gave homes and jobs to its people. They now have good lifestyle and high per capita income, whereas we are struggling at the bottom of the pyramid,” Economic Times has quoted Goyal as saying.
“I cannot go to a poor person who barely gets two square meals a day in my country and tell him that what happened over the past 150 years is now his responsibility.
“I cannot tell him to pay more for access to electricity [to bequeath] a cleaner planet for the next generation and the six billion people of the world.”
The minister iterated that the risk was “not only of our world” but also “for everyone’s world and probably the stakes are much higher for the developed countries than for our countries”.
He condemned the ban some nations were imposing on funding coal-based power and said such measures would harm the effort to develop renewable energy.
Ajith Kumar S