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Leaders, distinguished speakers pledge to work towards clean energy at ‘Eve of Hope’

by Zainab Naeem (TERI)/New Delhi, India | The Energy and Resources Institute
Tuesday, 14 May 2013 09:29 GMT

* Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Washington DC: May 13, 2013: The fourth edition of the US-India Energy Partnership Summit entitled Stimulating Technology, Trade and Development”, jointly organized by TERI North America and Yale University kickstarted with a glittering ceremony at the Washington Marriott today.

Delivering the keynote address at the “Eve of Hope”, Mr. Al Gore, Former Vice President, United States of America & Co-Founder and Chairman, Generation Investment Management, said the crisis of the environment was a crisis of democracy and of capitalism – two systems that are supposed to draw on the “wisdom of the crowds” and ideally drive human development.

Lauding Lighting a Billion Lives initiative of TERI, he said that it is “a wonderful visionary project.”

In an emotional speech, he said that in tackling the crises of environment and global warming, “We are failing because democracy has been hacked”. Therefore, we are not able to respond to needs of the people and the looming environmental issues.

HE Ms Nirupama Rao, Ambassador, Embassy of India to USA stressed on the need for developing innovative technologies and programs that are crucial for the future of the people of India.

Dr. R K Pachauri President, TERI-North America said "Lighting a Billion Lives campaign has been an extremely heartwarming initiative for all of us in TERI, and a transformational change for those million+ people in India and other countries who are benefitting from this innovation. The extent to which the lives of beneficiaries of this programme improve radically is an amazing discovery which goes far beyond our most optimistic expectations”. He further addedthat the Summit has become a major defining activity that brings the two great democracies together.

Dr. Farooq Abdullah,Minister, New and Renewable Energy, Government of India ,affirming India's commitment to renewable energy said that there is a need for technology to achieve this goal and called for easy transfer of technology. Renewable sources of energy are essential for both national energy security as well as for development.

The proceeds from the Summit’s signature event went towards TERI’s global campaign, Lighting a Billion Lives (LaBL) which endeavours to provide clean lighting and cook-stoves to remote corners of rural India and other countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa that have no access to electricity.

On the occasion, TERI-NA also released its publication entitled “Clean Energy Solutions: A Compilation of Studies from TERI India”. The topics covered by TERI researchers in the publication deal with subjects such as the potential applications of smartgrids, the challenge ofuniversal energy access, knowledge flows in the field of industrial ecology, howto design policies for improved environmental governance and other topics. These subjects have very high policy relevance, not only for India but also for other emerging economies and even developed countries that need to make major changes to the direction of their energy development.

For more information about US-India Energy Partnership Summit 2013, please visit: http://www.terina.org/usindiasummit/

For more information about the LaBL initiative, please visit : http://labl.teriin.org/

 

 

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