Infra and solar alliance: India’s climate vision

• Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched a new programme to secure and strengthen critical infrastructure in small island states against disasters induced by climate change.
• Infrastructure for Resilient Island States or IRIS is the first major initiative by the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) started by India in 2019.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Infrastructure for Resilient Island States (IRIS) on sidelines of climate summit in Glasgow.

What is the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure?

• The Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure is a partnership between national governments, United Nations programmes and agencies, development banks, academic institutions and the private sector.
• The objective of the coalition is to address challenges related to building resilience into infrastructure systems and associated developments.
• It promotes the resilience of new and existing infrastructure systems to climate and disaster risks in support of sustainable development.
• Developed through consultations with more than 35 countries, CDRI targets a measurable reduction in infrastructure losses from disasters.
• CDRI supports the expeditious development of resilient infrastructure in response to the Sustainable Development Goals’ necessities of extending universal access to basic services, facilitating prosperity and decent work.
• It will work towards standardisation of designs, processes and regulations relating to infrastructure creation and management.
• The CDRI is a partnership between national governments and other agencies and not based on rights and obligations. It may be noted that the decisions, policies and standards of the coalition are not binding on the members.
• The CDRI was launched by Prime Minister Modi in September 2019 at the UN Climate Action Summit.
• The idea behind the CDRI was announced by Mr Modi in 2016 at the Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR).
• There, he declared India’s intention to work with partner countries and important stakeholders to create a coalition to work towards the ambition of improving the disaster resilience of infrastructure.
• Its Secretariat is in New Delhi.
• It is a platform for knowledge generation and exchange and will also develop country-specific as well as global plans.
• CDRI will give member countries technical support and capacity development, research and knowledge management, and advocacy and partnerships to enable and boost investment in disaster-resilient infrastructure systems.
• India is also behind the formation of another key international organisation, the International Solar Alliance (ISA).

Need for CDRI

• Infrastructure is a key driver of economic growth. With the growing demands of a burgeoning global population and unpredictable hazard patterns, the extant infrastructure will be put under additional stress and new infrastructure will be constructed in hazard-prone areas.
• According to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), upgraded disaster resilience of infrastructure is a foundation for sustainable development.
• One of the targets of the Sendai Framework focuses on infrastructure as an important prerequisite for achieving the other targets of disaster loss reduction under the framework.
• Thus, building an infrastructure system that is resilient to disasters is vital for economic growth with sustainable development.
• While India has been hailed for its reduction in the number of human casualties in disasters, the country lags behind in protecting property and infrastructure during natural disasters or extreme weather events.
• The World Bank calculated that the economic losses due to disasters during the late 90s and early 2000s were close to 2% of the GDP.

Objectives of CDRI

• The objectives of the CDRI are as follows:

• To promote the resilience of infrastructure systems to climate and disaster risks ensuring sustainable development.

• To rapidly expand the development and retrofit of resilient infrastructure to respond to the Sustainable Development Goals imperatives of expanding universal access to basic services, enabling prosperity and decent work.

Has India taken such a global climate initiative before CDRI?

• CDRI is India’s second international climate initiative; the first was the International Solar Alliance (ISA), launched at the 2015 Paris climate change conference.
• ISA’s main objective is to promote largescale harnessing and exploitation of solar energy.
• Equatorial and tropical regions get very good sunlight for most of the year, which is sufficient to meet the energy demands of many countries in this belt.
• ISA is working towards boosting the use of solar power in the region, mainly by bringing down the cost of technology and finance, which can facilitate rapid, mass deployment of solar energy.
• It hopes to do so by aggregating the demand from a large number of countries, standardising equipment and grid, and promoting research and development.
• To take this idea forward, the One Sun One World One Grid (OSOWOG) proposes a common grid through more than 100 countries.
• The idea is to stabilise energy supply, overcome local and natural fluctuations in the availability of sunlight, and to maintain reliable baseload capacities at all times.
• ISA and CDRI are an attempt by India to claim climate mission leadership at the global level. Both have received wide support from developing as well as developed countries.
• The solar alliance will result in the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions through a largescale switch from fossil fuels to solar energy, while also addressing issues of energy access and energy security.
• CDRI is aimed towards achieving the adaptation goal.
• Together, they form the bases of India’s vision for global climate action that also takes into account issues of equity, development, and the special needs of developing and least developed countries.

IRIS: Infrastructure for Resilient Island States

• A specific work programme that aims to operationalise the CDRI initiative in small island nations.
• The impacts of climate change adversely affect small island states the most.
• The rise in sea levels possess the threat of them being wiped off the map.
• CDRI estimates suggest that many small island states have lost 9% of their GDPs in single disaster events during the past few years.
• Infrastructure in these smaller countries is more critical simply because there is so little of it.
• IRIS will work towards mobilising and directing financial resources towards building resilient infrastructure, retrofitting existing infrastructure, development of early warning systems, and development and sharing of best practices.