JICA signs loan agreement with TCCL for climate change management project

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) recently signed a loan agreement with Tata Cleantech Capital Limited (TCCL) for a maximum amount of 10 billion Japanese yen for the "Climate Change Management Project" in India. According to the reports by ANI, this loan will be provided through the Private Sector Investment Finance scheme of JICA. Also, it is co-financing with the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. 

The press release by JICA read, “On March 25, JICA signed a Loan Agreement for a maximum amount of JPY 10 billion with Indian Non-Banking Financial Company, TCCL to support the company to offer loans to businesses across India that focus on renewable energy generation, electric vehicles (EV) as well as energy efficiency following the Green Loan Principle”. It further said, “The Indian government has ratified Paris Agreement in 2016, in which India promised to decrease the emission of GHG p+er GDP by 33-35 per cent before 2030. In order to achieve the target, the government of India is promoting mitigation measures such as the installation of renewable energy (solar power, wind power etc.), energy-efficient equipment, and electric vehicles”. 

2021 is a ‘crucial year’

This comes after WWF International Director General Marco Lambertini told Xinhua news agency that 2021 is a ‘crucial year’ for climate change and countries have only limited time to act and safeguard the future. Speaking at an event after the nations plunged in dark to mark the Earth Hour 2021, the head of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) International called for an “urgent action” to secure the nature positive world and preserve the ecosystems, managing resources by the year 2030 and raising hope for the  COP15 biodiversity conference to be held in China. "This is the time to unite people, to speak up for nature," WWF International Director General Marco Lambertini told Xinhua, adding that 2021 was a ‘super year’ for nature and stability and world leaders must take decisive actions, particularly on climate deterioration.

"There has been new, shocking evidence about the condition of nature on the planet -- One million species driven to extinction, a two-thirds global decline in wildlife populations in less than 50 years, 90 per cent of fish stocks overfished in the ocean,” he said. However, he stressed that the pandemic has aligned focus on protecting the environment in a better way and it has proven that nature conservation is not just an ecological issue. "Because at the end of the day, we understand that we depend on nature more than nature actually depends on us," he stressed. 

Earlier last month, the UN warned in a report that the world was far from achieving agreed goals to reduce global warming in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.  UN’s Secretary-General António Guterres told Member States meeting for the preparation of the annual UN climate conference COP26 that the countries had remained way off target in staying within the 1.5-degree limit of the Paris Agreement. “We need more ambition, more ambition on mitigation, ambition on adaptation, and ambition on finance,” Guterres said, describing 2021 as a “crucial year” to fight against climate change.

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