As head of International Solar Alliance, India calls for derisking climate finance to boost energy transition

President of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) Assembly and India's Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy, RK Singh, has called for the derisking of private investments in renewable energy to speed up the energy transition across the world. Speaking at the sixth session of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) Assembly in New Delhi, he pointed out that the move to raise VGF (viability gap funding) from the existing 10% to 35% is aimed at increasing the flow of investments into renewable energy, particularly solar energy.

While a fund has been set up with components of payment security and insurance to ensure the availability of green finance, solar cold storage and cold chains for vaccines have also been inaugurated. Despite working with over 120 member countries and with most multilateral development banks (MDBs) as partners, Singh pointed out that 733 million people in the world still don't have access to electricity, and it's high time ISA emerged as a force for good. However, he refused to specify country-specific energy transition targets for ISA members, citing the differences in circumstances among several countries, while adding that targets should rather be aspirational.

With the COP 28 conference slated to take place in Dubai in a month, the ISA Assembly's co-president and France's Minister of State for Development, Francophonie, and International Partnerships, Chrysoula Zacharopoulou said that the challenge was to lower the cost and drive investment into solar energy, clarifying that the same solar fund can't be expected to finance projects in the OECD countries as well as Africa.