Sindhu Jha
NEW DELHI: Presiding over the four-day event of fifth Assembly of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) in New Delhi, India effectively and emphatically gave the message to the global fraternity about the seriousness of the agenda of climate change, especially clean and green energy issues. After COP-26 (Paris Climate Conference-2016), the Indian Government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vigorously pursued the agenda of green energy down the years with consistency. Besides sharing its experiences with the international community, it has given a positive message to it as to how a low-carbon economy can be created through the promotion of solar energy.
For achieving the goal, India has given utmost focus to the important product of ISA, which is One Sun One World One Grid – a framework for facilitating global cooperation and building a global ecosystem of interconnected renewable energy resources that can be seamlessly shared. At the opening ceremony of the ISA’s fifth Assembly, Union Minister of Power and New & Renewable Energy RK Singh stated that the past two years have provided us multiple reminders that the global dependence on fossil fuels is unhealthy, not just for the environment, but also for the economy.
The good news is that we already have the tools we need to counter these, and the development in technology is making sure that even more effective resources are made available in the years to come. It is now up to us to decide how quickly we can deploy these.
India’s mission in this context is that ISA can assist member nations in formulating and implementing solar-ready policies and regulatory development of national energy landscapes and for engaging with public and private sector entities to leverage low-cost financing to achieve ISA’s solarisation agenda.
The ISA is structured as an international resource hub with in-house technical expertise that will be readily accessible by member nations and is capable of guiding project implementation at scale. The ISA has come a long way since its formation, and India and other member countries are moving forward at a great pace, thanks to the guidance and support provided by each and every member of ISA.
At the ISA, all 110 member nations are passionate about making a sizable impact on the adverse effects caused by climate change while ensuring that the development efforts are not hampered. The groundwork with multilateral support and multistakeholder partnerships has been laid and with the fifth Assembly, all have hope to accelerate actions on global solarisation, scaling and expanding the impact of our interventions across nations, and growing and actualising its existing pipeline for solar projects.
To enable this, ISA Director General Ajay Mathur opined that the “International Solar Alliance aspires to become the go-to platform that brings together resources from around the world to surgically target the challenges faced by our member countries in the deployment of solar energy solutions,” Its basic motive is to facilitate energy access, ensure energy security, and drive energy transition in its member countries. The ISA was conceived as a joint effort by India and France to mobilise efforts against climate change through the deployment of solar energy solutions. It will help provide for regular and well-defined cooperation between the Alliance and the United Nations that would benefit global energy growth and development. The ISA will help member countries develop low-carbon growth trajectories, with a particular focus on delivering impact in countries categorised as Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and the Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
The 2022 Governance Meetings of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) were initiated in July this year. The governance bodies of the ISA, namely the Assembly, the Standing Committee, and the Regional Committees offer an integrated approach to governance and decision-making within the Alliance, read the ISA statement
