Propose bilateral green deal to U.S. Â
The U.S. has re-entered the Paris Climate agreement. What does this mean for India?
- This is an opportunity for India to be proactive and propose a bilateral deal, where the U.S. and India can work more closely on climate change.
- There will be pressure on India to give a plan on when it will achieve Net Zero (when a country’s carbon dioxide emissions are balanced by the amount locked back in).
- However, we must have an agreement on the use of hydrogen, and form a Green Hydrogen Alliance.
- The S. will predictably try to nudge, cajole other countries into raising ambition (in the form of greater emission targets, for example) but India shouldn’t be swayed by emotion.
- India can use this opportunity to ask the U.S. to raise ambition, given that it has been out of the agreement for four years.
Upcoming United Nations Conference of Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland to be a significant one in terms of agreements:
- It will be a very significant event though probably not as much as the conference in Paris (in 2015). The reason for its importance is because it’s coming in a year after the pandemic began.
- COP26 will likely be about the mechanisms, especially financial ones, to operationalize plans.
- Hydro power is considered part of the renewable energy mix.
- In light of the disaster in Uttarakhand, What’s the future for hydropower?
- It was only two years ago that large hydropower projects (above 25 MW) started to be considered as renewable energy.
- We should be going back to the earlier definition where only the smaller hydropower plants were considered renewable energy.
- In future, we have to think if hydropower can compete with solar-plus-storage and it’s very much possible that the latter will be cheaper than a new hydropower plant.
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