The US Department of Energy and the All India Institute of Local Self Government (AIILSG) have launched a joint training program on energy efficient and green cities in Goa, which will train Indian experts, universities, local governments and civic bodies on helping cities to move to solar powered energy. According to Mark Ginberg, senior official with the US Department of Energy, twenty cities in India have already been lined up for this program and they will be partnered with cities in the US. Ginberg notes that if India is able to generate 20,000 MW of solar energy by 2020, sixty Indian cities will be solar powered by that year.
According to an initial list of partnered Indo-US cities, Ahmedabad has been partnered with Atlanta and Columbus; Bangalore with San Francisco; Chennai with Denver, Delhi with Chicago, Mumbai with Los Angeles, Surat with Philadelphia and Vadodara (Baroda) with Edison, New Jersey.
Ginberg pointed out that Barack Obama has marked 60 billion dollars for energy efficiency and renewable energy, with five billion dollars set aside each for cities and states, federal buildings and low income families to migrate to renewable energy sources.
- Read more: 60 solar powered Indian cities by 2020: US energy official
(The Times of India, 9/8/09)
Stacey Meinzen has a broad range of experience in climate change policy. From her work with ICLEI doing a municipal greenhouse gas inventory to her news coverage of climate change for Flex Your Power's e-Newswire, to her research on climate change policy for Green For All, she has absorbed a range of views and interests about the best way to deal with this complex issue. Her primary interest is in local solutions that can be executed with sound policy to support them. She founded ClimateActionPlans.com to highlight key green projects and the programs and policies that allow them to happen.