The Global Himalayan Expedition (GHE) has won a prestigious UN award for its efforts to combat climate change amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The organisation� is among the winners of the 2020 UN Global Climate Action Award.
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Highlights
GHE is world’s first organisations that is using tourism and technology to bring solar energy to remote communities as recognised by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) and the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).
Global Himalayan Expedition (GHE)
GHE is an Indian organisation that open up the tourism and technology in order to help remote communities to access solar energy. It conducts Impact Expeditions that help the remote Himalayan villages. The organisation uses the portion of the expedition fee to fund the capital cost of the hardware, transportation, installation and training of village-scale solar micro-grids. The micro-grid infrastructure is owned and operated by the community.
Coverage by GHE
GHE has so far solar electrified some 131 villages in the three regions of India. The project is directly impacting the lives of more than 60,000 villagers. It has further enabled the livelihood through homestay tourism. Thus, has generated over USD 1,14,000 in income for the villages. It shows there is an increase by 45 percent in the annual household income.
UN Global Climate Action Award
The awards are guided by the power for change drive at UN Climate Change. It is a major goal that mobilize the wishes and action as government work to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
UNFCCC is an international environmental pact that addresses the climate change. It has been arranged and signed by 154 states at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). UNFCCC is informally known as the Earth Summit. The summit happened in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to 14, 1992.� UNFCCC came into force on March 21, 1994. It has been headquartered in Bonn.