India welcomes US as 101st member of International Solar Alliance conceived by PM Modi

International Solar Alliance (ISA), envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has added US as a new member on Tuesday, November 10. The announcement was made at the ongoing Conference of Parties (COP26) climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, where US representative John Kerry informed of his country's participation.

India's Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Bhupendra Yadav disclosed the development on Twitter with a post where he wrote, "Happy that now USA is formally a part of International Solar Alliance, a visionary initiative launched by PM Shri @narendramodi Ji in 2015 at Paris COP. The number of countries who are now part of @isolaralliance is now 101 (sic)". 

In another tweet, Yadav informed that the parties also discussed issues like Climate Finance, Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and its adaptation and more. "Also held discussions on Climate Finance, Article 6 of Paris Agreement, adaptation etc and emphasised on the urgency of actions required especially w.r.t providing financial & technological support from the developed countries to the developing ones to ensure Climate Justice", Yadav wrote in his second tweet.

On the other hand, Kerry said that the US is "pleased" to join the alliance and lauded Yadav and PM Modi for "championing this important endeavour".

The idea of the International Solar Alliance - an intergovernmental treaty-based international organisation, was first pitched by PM Modi during the 2015 COP summit where several countries had agreed to develop a network to work on reducing dependency on fossil fuels and move towards solar energy as an alternative to the former.

On Monday, the ISA had joined hands with research publishing and information analytics major Elsevier at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow to launch a new journal to enhance research on the use of solar power.

Image: Twitter/@byadavbjp