Subsidies essential for promoting green energy: PM

18 Apr 2013 Evaluate

Concerned over the high financing cost of green energy production, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pitched for subsidies for clean energy, which is financing of green energy is one of the crucial issues for promoting expansion of clean energy. As per Singh, market forces alone will not provide sufficient financing in this environment unless the risks of policy change were appropriately addressed.

Further, highlighting the critical issues in promoting expansion of green energy, Singh said investments in green energy were subject to technological, commercial and regulatory risks. In addition, the pace of reliance on new energy sources is constrained by the fact that they are more expensive than conventional energy. The cost of solar energy had nearly halved over the last two years, but was still higher than the cost of fossil fuel based electricity, he added.

By adding further he said, rich nations, who were responsible for a bulk of greenhouse gas emissions, are best placed to provide workable solutions to mitigate climate change. Developed nations also have high per capita incomes which gave them the highest capacity to bear the burden, additionally, they are technically most advanced, and to that extent best placed to provide workable solutions not only for themselves but for the whole world.

Regarding the investment in green energy sector, Singh said that India is taking steps to exploit non-conventional clean energy sources like solar and wind power by introducing best technology and has proposed to double renewable energy capacity in the country from 25,000 MW in 2012 to 55,000 MW by 2017. Noting that India was potentially a large market for production of such equipment, he urged global manufacturers to set up production facilities in the country in this area.

Manmohan Singh also raised concerns over the slow progress in climate talks and said the goal of stabilizing global temperatures was nowhere in sight. He urged individual countries to take action to increase energy efficiency.

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