Letters: Green subsidies won't work

Apropos the editorial “Policy heats up” (May 7), given the fact that climate change as an issue has been put on the backburner in most countries, it is heartening that India’s Planning Commission is giving it due priority. Yet, we are not convinced that non-emitting and renewable sources of energy are sustainable on a commercial basis. Take the US. Solyndra, a solar module maker, has gone bust after taking around half a billion of money from the US treasury. The case is being highlighted as a precedent by the Republicans to discredit the entire policy of subsidising the manufacture of renewable energy sources. Why should the government hand over money to a manufacturer instead of doling it out straight to beneficiaries, the argument goes, especially when renewables are not known to be viable commercially? For India, the lesson is that subsidising an industry is, at best, a palliative, not a cure. We must first address the issue of fossil fuels, as they are—either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade. It is then the job of policy-makers to help increase the viability of solar and wind power stations. An indirect way would be to make it costlier for coal-fired plants to produce power.

Raghu Seshadri Chennai

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