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Sumedha Sharma
Tribune news Service
Gurgaon, January 25
Cyber city Gurgaon graduated to being a solar city as Prime Minister Narendera Modi and French President Fransçois Hollande today inaugurated the interim secretariat of the International Solar Alliance (ISA). They also laid the foundation stone of the ISA building in the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE) here.
The ISA comprises more than 100 solar-resource-rich countries that are working together with the objective of globally increasing the use of solar energy.
While Hollande announced that the French Development Agency will allocate 300 million euros for developing solar energy over the next five years in order to finance the initial projects to be undertaken by the ISA, Modi emphasised the need to strike a balance between development and preserving the environment.
“India is a land where nature is worshipped as God, so saving the environment comes naturally to us. But, with changing times and challenges such as global warming, innovation has become need of the hour. The issue of
global warming has panicked all nations over the past one year. On the other hand, increasing energy needs have become a
challenge. So the task now is to get maximum energy, but without exploiting the nature and sun is the answer to the quest,” the Prime Minister said.
The US, France and India took a joint initiative at the COP21 to promote innovation, he said. The alliance intended to bring together 122 nations that got more than 300 days of sunlight in a year, he added.
“If nations producing petroleum can come together, I wondered why can’t nations where the sun shines for more than 300 days in a year join hands. There are 122 such nations and the French President helped me in this initiative and speaking to other countries. I have met leaders of many small island nations and understood their concerns stemming from climate change,” he said.
Though the ISA was headquartered in India, it was a global institution meant for the benefit of mankind.
Narendra Modi and Hollande had launched the International Solar Alliance at the opening of the Paris Climate Conference on November 30, 2015.