New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, re-design and re-manufacture have been part of India's cultural ethos while underscoring that environmental sustainability could only be achieved through climate justice.
Delivering the inaugural address at the 21st World Sustainable Development Summit 2022 (WSDS-22), PM Modi said energy requirements of the people of India were expected to double in the next 20 years.
"Environmental sustainability can only be achieved through climate justice. Energy requirements of the people of India are expected to double in the next 20 years.
"Denying this energy would be denying life itself to millions. Successful climate action also needs adequate financing. For this, developed countries need to fulfil their commitments on finance and technology transfer," the prime minister said.
PM Modi further said that India believed in fulfilling commitments under the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
"We firmly believe in fulfilling all our commitments made under the UNFCCC. We have also raised our ambitions during CoP-26 at Glasgow," Modi said.
Referring to the Stockholm Conference of 1972, the PM said that a "lot has been said over but very little has been done. But in India, we have walked the talk".
PM Modi called India a mega-diverse country that accounted for eight per cent of the world's species.
"With 2.4 per cent of the world's land area, India accounts for nearly 8 per cent of the world's species. It is our duty to protect this ecology. We are strengthening our protected area network," he said.
He encouraged the farmers to use solar panels and sell the surplus energy produced to the grids. He also urged academic and research institutes like TERI to come up with sustainable solutions to realise the potential of green hydrogen.
PM Modi pointed out that two more wetlands in the country had been identified as Ramsar sites, taking the total number of Ramsar sites to 49 in India.
The WSDS 2022 is a three-day summit being organised by TERI with participation from over 100 countries. It will conclude on February 18. The umbrella theme of the summit is "Towards a Resilient Planet: Ensuring a Sustainable and Equitable Future".