Ahead of International Solar Alliance's big event, a stream of arrivals have begun, causing a VVIP traffic chaos in New Delhi's Chanakyapuri. Dignititaries for the ISA's first summit, to be held on March 11, have started arriving. Apart from the star of the show, French President Emmanuel Macron, these include representatives of 47 member nations – heads of state, heads of government and heads of delegation. Among the VVIPs are Bangladesh President Md. Abdul Hamid, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, Seychelles President Danny Faure, Governor General of Australia Sir Peter Cosgrove, Sheikh Hamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, chairman of the Crown prince court of Abu Dhabi.
The ISA became a legal entity on December 6, 2015, just days after the Paris Summit on climate change. It envisages a coalition of 121 nations between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, who are rich in solar energy. The alliance hopes to harness the sun's power to provide clean and renewable energy to these nations, most of which have immense development needs. While solar energy is abundant and limitless (in the time frame of humans, at least), there are several reasons why it has not been used for power generation. These range from problems of scaling up to storage.
France's involvement in the alliance is in the position of a capacity builder, technology provider and hopefully, a provider of much required finances, too. So far, 30 countries have ratified the ISA and 60 have signed the framework agreement. K. Nagraj Naidu, joint secretary (West Europe) at the Minsitry of External Affairs said that shortly, the ISA membership would be thrown open to countries beyond the tropics, too.
The ISA was a grand idea proposed by India and was sold at the Paris Summit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Despite the initial enthusiasm seen during its formation, as well as the inauguration of its headquarters at Gurugram by then French President Francois Hollande, there hasn't been much visible traction in this sector since. Experts say that the need for solar energy powered machinery is immense, in fact, sometimes the demand is more than supply. Yet, the alliance itself hasn't been stitched up properly yet. “We hope the summit will take forward the needs of the industry. We expect France to invest in research for technology that can scale up solar power use, as well as solve the storage issues,'' said Rohit Magotra of Integrated Research and Action for Development.
Just ahead of the summit, the European Investment Bank confirmed support to expansion of solar energy in developing and emerging economies. The bank had, in 2017, provided a billion euro for financing new solar energy projects.
Australia has also extended support for the ISA initiative. “As one of the 26 founding members of the ISA, Australia is looking forward to sharing its expertise in solar technologies and research globally. Australia’s participation adds a new dimension to the already thriving Australia-India relationship,” said a statement issued by the Australian High Commission.
It is also expected that India and France will sign some bilateral agreements on solar energy during Macron's visit.
All these dignitaries attending the event will be welcomed at Rashtrapati Bhawan on the evening of March 10, with a banquet hosted by President Ramnath Kovind. New Delhi has become used to multi-dignitary visits ever since Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister in the summer of 2014. It started with his swearing-in ceremony, where leaders of all SAARC nations were invited. The recent ASEAN Summit as well as the Republic Day celebrations, in which all ASEAN heads were chief guests was another VVIP heavy event. Then, there was the Indo-Africa Forum Summit in 2015, which was perhaps the largest gathering of national heads (around 40) in India in recent times.