Clean energy goals can be the perfect ground for cooperation in a fragmented world at WEF 2023

New Delhi, Dec 27

Global leaders will soon converge at Davos, the popular Swiss ski resort, to discuss geo-politics, economics and development at the World Economic Forum's (WEF) flagship annual event, buffeted by growing climate concerns. Under the theme 'Cooperation in a Fragmented World', the Annual Meeting 2023 will bring together more than 2,500 leaders from government, business and civil society at a pivotal time

for the world.

The biggest cooperation will be required in the area of climate and clean energy and Davos 2023 will provide an important platform to drive forward-looking solutions and address the most pressing global challenges through public-private cooperation.

According to Louis Kuijs, Asia-Pacific Chief Economist at S&P Global Ratings, "Discretionary interference, erection of trade and investment barriers and attempts to decouple from certain economies will obviously contain growth of productivity and living standards. Also, fragmentation of the global economy will impede the green transition."

India, which figured amongst the top 10 high performers in the Climate Change Performance Index in 2020, has taken several initiatives, including setting up of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), for raising the domestic renewable energy target to 450 GW by 2030, putting in place an ambitious National Hydrogen Mission and continuing efforts to decouple its emissions from economic growth. The country has achieved the remarkable feat of connecting nearly all households to electricity while also creating one of the world's largest markets for renewable energy.

"Pursuing economic growth in line with the vision of becoming a net-zero emitter by 2070, hydrocarbon-rich countries (HRCs) could turn this challenge into an opportunity by taking advantage of their hydrocarbon resources, geographic locations, access to abundant renewable energy, and highly developed infrastructure to develop and export clean hydrogen, defined as hydrogen produced with very low or zero carbon emissions, and its derivatives, including clean fuels", says Dr. Prateek Kanakia, Chairman & Founder, TheGreenBillions Ltd., a company specialising in aggregating sustainable solutions to tackle climate change.

In Glasgow, in 2021, Prime Minister Modi also coined a new acronym-LIFE, shorthand for Lifestyle for Environment-to combat climate change. It is now for stakeholders from across the spectrum to deliberate on innovative partnerships that can accelerate the energy transition, gaps that need to be plugged to ensure energy security, industrial acceleration and also achieve climate change targets.