`Poor in India can`t pay for 150 years of pollution by West`

United Nations: India has asked the developed world to bear the "burden of the cross" for pumping carbon dioxide into the air for the past 150 years as a poor man in India cannot be told to pay more for a cleaner planet.

"Who is going to bear the burden of the cross for the past 150 years when carbon dioxide was pumped into the atmosphere, while the western world, the developed countries grew, industrialised, gave homes and jobs to their people. They have good lifestyle, a good high per capita income whereas we are struggling at the bottom of the pyramid," Power Minister Piyush Goyal said.

The Minister of State for Power, Coal, and New and Renewable Energy was speaking at a panel discussion on 'Catalysing a trillion dollar investment' here.

Goyal, participating in the First Global Energy Ministerial SE4ALL Forum Meeting, said, "I cannot go to a poor person in my country who barely gets two square meals in a day and tell him that what happened in the last 150 years is now his responsibility.

"I cannot tell him or her that you have to pay more for your access to electricity so that we can leave behind the cleaner planet for the next generation and the six billion people of the world," he said.

He stressed that risk to climate must be seen as the risk to the entire planet.

"This risk has been caused for the last 150 years by unmitigated pollution to environment and now we have been told that we have to sort out our house in order, we have to mitigate the risk for investors, we have to be able to attract the private sector," he said.

"I think the developed world will have to bear the burden of the cross, will have to appreciate that this risk mitigation is as much their responsibility as it is of the developing countries because the risk is not only of our world, the risk is everyone's world and probably the stakes are much higher for the developed countries than for our countries," he said.

Goyal underscored that domestic manufacturing and domestic capacity building is an integral part of the planned scale of renewable energy.

On the ban in several countries on funding coal-based power, Goyal said such measures are "extremely contrary" and harm the effort to bring in renewable power.

"Ultimately, coal-based power is cheaper. It provides the base load. It can be used to bundle with and to use more expensive renewable power with cheaper power and provides energy access which is the need of the hour," he said.

India is seeking to replace its old plants with some 30 more efficient ones for which an investment of nearly USD 40-50 billion is needed.

"If you are not going to fund my efforts, it may mean that I will have to run my old inefficient plants and fume more pollution in the world. That is not a happy situation," the Power Minister said.

Goyal asked both developed and developing nations to reassess their contribution if they want the Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved.

Assuring that India will achieve each of its goals, he said the country might probably even exceed them and is committed to make it happen whatever it takes.

Noting that multilateral agencies cannot have the mindset of the private sector, he said they truly have to have a developmental outlook.

On the Green Climate Fund, the Minister said it was proposed several years ago but only USD 10 billion has come in out of the promised USD 100 billion.

"Not a single dollar has been invested so far. It is just lying in the bank," he said.

Goyal stressed that the international community is not going to achieve these goals if it does not scale up financing from now and there is no action on the ground.

"We can't plan an outcome in 2030 and wait till 2029 for reviewing these outcomes. What are we going to do in the next one year, next twelve months, next 24 months," he said.

Goyal also made a strong call for making technological innovation happen at much faster and cheaper rates.

"The developed world can't have technology improvement and then keep it to themselves or make the world pay for that. I think the multi-lateral agencies of the developed world should allocate research funds, and then just like you have open access on Google or Microsoft, allow the technology to be accessed by the world and benefit from that so that it can enable sustainable and affordable universal access to energy to the whole world," he said.