No reason to scale back our domestic targets, says CEEW's Arunabha Ghosh

Expectations from this year's COP are clear on issues, whether we have a ministerial presence or not, Arunabha Ghosh, CEO of Council for Energy Environment and Water, said in his interview

India’s current climate policies are projected to reduce CO2 emissions by almost 4 billion tonnes between 2020 and 2030, equivalent to nearly 1.6 times the European Union’s CO2 emissions in 2023. However, the developed countries have adopted a much slower approach to emissions reduction, which may see a further downtrend with the US likely to cut down its target under a new Trump administration. Arunabha Ghosh, CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, a leading global think tank based out of New Delhi, spoke with S Dinakar on a range of climate-related issues ahead of the annual UN climate summit COP29 that gets underway in Azerbaijan's capital Baku on November 11. Edited excerpts:

 

Does Donald Trump's victory change the outlook for climate change mitigation and financing at COP29?

 

Let’s look at it historically. Even under the previous Trump administration, India’s own renewable energy deployment and its ambitions kept rising. I don’t see any reason why our domestic targets should scale back. Even the latest CEA (Central Electricity Authority) report is now looking at not just 500 gigawatts (Gw) (of renewables) by 2030, but 600 gigawatts by 2032, which presents an additional investment opportunity of around $100 billion. I do not see scaling back. I’m only seeing the direction of travel, and the potential to scale up the ambition overall.

 

And financing?

 

The other aspect is financing. Not a single developed country has delivered what they committed to climate financing, even that is inadequate to what is needed. India's own submissions, as well as the numbers that have come from independent expert groups, all suggest that about $1 trillion is needed annually from international sources to meet the $2.5 trillion annual target of climate finance that the developing countries need.

 

As COP29 starts and the debate around the new collective quantified goal for climate finance gains prominence, my worry is about what the collateral damage would be in terms of the ambitions and acceleration of what other countries do, as well as the money that is promised. Especially, if the largest historical polluter sends signals that they would neither provide the money nor speed up what’s happening domestically.

 

India may have a truncated presence at COP29, with ministers skipping the event. Is there a reason for this?

 

Expectations from this year's COP are clear on issues, whether we have a ministerial presence or not. There are some clear issues that India will continue to argue for. One aspect is the new collective quantified goal on finance.

 

The second issue critical to India will be around the global goal of adaptation. Being one of the most vulnerable countries, there is growing domestic concern around adaptation and resilience. The third issue that will matter very much to India will be Article 6 (carbon market) negotiations. In the absence of any decision on agreement on the overall goal on climate finance, Article 6, which allows for bilateral trading of credits, gives an alternative route for accessing international climate finance. India has been exploring this very carefully in bilateral discussions with other countries. It is developing its own domestic carbon credit trading scheme.

 

Finally, something that would matter is loss and damage. Even though the fund was finalised in previous COPs, the commitments so far are minimal. Whatever the COP29 presidency might or might not want, these are very concrete issues that will matter to India and other developing countries.

 

What is your response to those who say India should do much more on the climate front, and that the climate change issue has been reduced to optics and statements?

 

We're just presenting the numbers as they are. I don't think our report is inconsistent with what needs to happen from 2020 to 2030, if we do achieve all of this, we will reduce four billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. We have repeatedly stated that the pace of deployment has to be faster. From now until 2030, we will need to deploy about three times more renewable energy capacity annually than what we have been doing in the past.

 

Last month, we published a report on the nexus - land, water, population concentration, seismic zones — all mapped out across the entire country in a 5-by-5-kilometer grid. Over 7,000 gigawatts of potential renewable capacity can be built. Against that, only 200 gigawatts have been deployed.

 

Have you taken into account India’s renewed interest in coal generation, and wouldn’t it contribute to a much higher emissions rate?

 

There are about 30 gigawatts of coal power assets that are currently in the pipeline and being built. Most of these were sanctioned pre-pandemic. It's not that the doubling of that is actually sanctioned, tendered, there are power purchase agreements and these plants are being built. So, we have to be careful in assessing what is actually being built.

 

Have India’s climate policies changed over the last 2-3 years, given that the pace of execution on renewables has been much slower, what kind of impact additional coal-fired plants will have on emissions?

 

There are two ways to look at this. Post-pandemic, not just the economic growth rate but the energy demand growth rate has also gone up, and therefore there is an energy security concern on whether enough power is in the system to meet that demand.

 

The way to move away from coal is to inject more renewables into the system. What has happened is an increase in tendering. In 2023-24, about 45 gigawatts of tenders happened, almost three times what used to be the case. Now, once the tender is done, then comes the issue of the financial closure, and, more importantly, the building of the actual project, where we are also observing some challenges. Land is one issue, transmission is another, finance is third, and supply chain is the fourth.

 

On deployment, China has been putting up easily close to 200 gigawatts a year in renewable capacity, while we do 15 Gw. Is there anything they are doing differently?

 

There is no question about that. In absolute terms, the Chinese deployment is much higher. This is driven in two ways: one by the scale of the electricity system that China has, which is much larger than India's, and also the large amount of domestic manufacturing capacity they've built, which makes solar panels, wind turbines, or the access to critical minerals or battery technology that is readily available. So, for India, which now has about 70 Gw of module manufacturing capacity in place, this is one way in which we can build up our ecosystem. It would be an inefficient deployment of capital if India tries to make everything at home. (In a September study) we’ve identified the specific components in which India has a comparative advantage.

 

For instance, junction boxes or silver paste for solar modules, wind turbine gearboxes, and hub castings, where we already have a comparative advantage, or where we can get new export competitiveness such as in solar wafers, polysilicon, or diamond wire saws. The same applies to the emerging green hydrogen ecosystem, where we’ve identified different types of electrolysers. We have already indigenised about 60 to 80 per cent depending on the technology and 10 to 20 per cent can be further indigenised.

 

Effectively, if we pursued domestic manufacturing in a more granular way by focusing on those components in which we have a comparative advantage, we should be able to not just build up domestic manufacturing capacity, but also acquire the remaining components from other sources at cost-competitive rates, and thereby, have a more reliable supply chain for rapid deployment.