International Solar Alliance

Explanation :

• The ISA was unveiled jointly by India and France at the U.N. Climate Change Conference-CoP-21 in Paris on November 30^th, 2015. It is headquartered at GwalPahari, Gurugram, India.
• The ISA Framework Agreement was opened for signature during the CoP-22 at Marrakesh on 15^th November, 2016.
• The idea was to form a coalition of solar resource-rich countries to collaborate on addressing the identified gaps in their energy requirements through a common approach.
• Towards this, the ISA has set a target of 1 TW of solar energy by 2030.
• Under the alliance, India has set a target to produce 100 GW of solar energy by 2022 and reduction in emission intensity by 33–35% by 2030.
• The ISA is open to 121 prospective member countries, most of them located between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn as this is the region worldwide with a surplus of bright sunlight for most of the year. Till date, 81 countries have taken membership of ISA.

Key Focus Areas

• Promote solar technologies, new business models and investment in the solar sector to enhance prosperity
• Formulate projects and programmes to promote solar applications
• Develop innovative financial mechanisms to reduce cost of capital
• build a common knowledge e-Portal
• Facilitate capacity building for promotion and absorption of solar technologies and R&D among member countries