UN chief to renew call on India, other G20 countries, to invest in sustainable transition for post-COVID recovery

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 28 August 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.