 "Sunita Narain, BS manthan, Business Standard even")
India needs to find a balance between its plans to become a developed country by 2047, clean energy and the environment, said a panel of experts at Business Standard summit, Business Manthan, in New Delhi on Thursday.
The panel that discussed fossil fuel, clean energy and India’s stance in climate talks comprised Vivek Dewangan, chairman and managing director of REC Ltd; Sunita Narain, director general of Centre for Science and Environment; Ulka Kelkar, executive director at Climate, WRI India, and Derek M. Shah, senior vice-president & head-green energy business at Larsen & Toubro.
India is standing at a crucial juncture and it is imperative to adapt to rapid economic growth along with addressing the vulnerability to environmental issues, Narain said
Talking about India’s aspirations to become a $30 trillion economy by 2047, Kelkar said that no country in the world has become rich by remaining energy poor. She pointed out that there are some major problems at hand currently.
India’s aim to tackle climate change cannot be only through carbon-lens. “As climate change risk starts manifesting, policy-making will have to become more adaptive, and decentralised. Even the new energy infrastructure or transport infra will be at risk due to climate change,” she said.
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New green jobs that will be created every year with the adoption of renewable energy won’t match up to the number of young people entering the labour market. “… but with the new workforce entering the job market every year is higher than the new jobs that will be created, it will become a problem,” said Kelkar.
“As fossil fuels taper off, the tax revenue will also come down. A loss of 1.5 trillion dollars till 2047 unless we seek new ways of generating revenue from green energies,” she said.
Dewangan, of REC Ltd, said India is the third largest producer and consumer of electricity and renewable energy will be intermittent to its needs. The country will need huge storage capacities.
On the issue of financing in the renewable energy sector, Narain said: “Indian industry is getting far more aware about the needs to transform, to take on actions which are good for them as well as the environment. Scale up needs to happen in sectors such as iron, cement, steel. There’s a lot the industry can do to decrease their carbon footprint.”
However, she said that green energy financing is still lagging from the private sector. “Cost of capital is still so high to make the transition we need. You cannot make renewable energy projects viable. Low concessional finance is going to be critical at the scale needed…
“The private finance story is bad. I don’t see private finance coming in for the transformation at the scale at which it is needed,” she added.
Kelkar said that while some states have invested in energy transformation, others will need assistance to overcome their geographical challenges. “Bihar, Jharkhand etc are highly climate change prone. They are badly placed in terms of generation of renewable energy. So much so they may have to buy renewable energy from other states in the future… These states might lose out and will need additional help,” she said.
Shah, of Larsen & Toubro, said that states which had a lead in announcing green hydrogen policies have attracted investments. “While the states will lay the policies, the industries will also be attracted to demand centres,” he said.
