BEFORE we debate why India declined to join the Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge –signed by 119 countries—at the COP28 in Dubai that agreed to triple worldwide installed renewable energy generation capacity to at least 11,000 gigawatts and to double the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements to more than 4 per cent by 2030, let us look at some of the numbers from the sub-continent.
If this is one side of the story, on the other side you have the prospects of the country exceeding the ambitious target of 500 gigawatts of renewal energy capacity that it has set for 2030. Infact, Ajay Mathur, Director- General of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) and a member of the PM’s Council on Climate Change told the news agency PTI, “It is possible that the future may come around if battery prices fall. The ISA’s forecast indicates that this would happen this year 2024 or 2025. If that happens, then solar plus batteries become the energy source of choice because they’re the cheapest. In that case, India will not only achieve 500 gigawatts, it will exceed the target,” he said.
And to now come back to the main question: why did India choose not to sign the Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge? Fundamentally, it is in the Indian leadership’s unwillingness to be tied down to accept benchmarks that can bring needless pressure and a need to course correct on our strategy.
Official sources state that the pledge asks for enhanced deployment of renewables by 2030 to create a system increasingly free of fossil fuels. The catch is that instead of all fossil fuels, it speaks specifically of the reduction in coal power and asks for “ending the continued investment in unabated new coal-fired power plants, which is incompatible with efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.”
And herein lies the catch. With India’s energy consumption demand galloping at closer to 9 per cent annually and an almost 100 per cent dependence on local financing to move to green energy, India can’t turn away from coal in the short to medium term. As energy expert Linda Kalcher of the think tank Strategic Perspectives says, “Pledges become relevant when they affect change on the ground and ensure that renewables are affordable everywhere through de-risking, guarantees or partnerships.”
While the final COP28 declaration has ramped up the ambitions and the targets by setting a tripling of renewable energy and a doubling of energy efficiency by 2030, there is nothing in the declaration on the vagaries of climate change impacting nations and how to find technology and frameworks to mitigate them. Most importantly, Also, no details on funding for those impacted by these climate stresses.
The declaration asks for net zero by 2050. What will be the framework to be adopted? Are there targets and timelines? There is nothing much on any of these key issues. Considering all these imponderables and the almost ceaseless drumbeat of the West to get fossil fuels out of the way it is clear that the country wants more time and a more transparent framework to sign on the dotted line.
