UN chief to renew call to India, G20 nations to invest in sustainable transition post-Coronavirus

UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will renew his call to India and other G20 countries to invest in a clean, sustainable transition as they recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, during his virtual address to The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).

Guterres will deliver the 19th Darbari Seth Memorial lecture on August 28 organised by TERI, a global think-tank focusing on a broad range of sustainable development and climate-related issues, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Wednesday.

In his lecture titled 'The rise of renewables: shining a light on a sustainable future', Guterres will renew "his call on G20 countries, including India, to invest in a clean, sustainable transition as they recover from the Covid-19 pandemic".

G20 consists of 19 individual countries -- including the US, Russia, China, Japan, Australia, Saudi -- plus the European Union.

Dujarric said Guterres is expected to say that as governments mobilise trillions of dollars to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, their decisions will have climate consequences for decades.

While Guterres will deliver the memorial lecture, India's Minister for External Affairs S Jaishankar will preside and deliver the presidential address. The annual lecture was initiated by TERI in 2002 in memory of the institute's founder Darbari Seth.