What
is CLimate Change Mitigation ?
Climate change
mitigation is action to decrease the intensity of radiative forcing in order to
reduce the potential effects of global warming. Mitigation is
distinguished from adaptation to global warming, which involves
acting to tolerate the effects of global warming.
Most often, climate change
mitigation scenarios involve reductions in the concentrations of greenhouse gases, either by reducing
their sources or by increasing their sinks.
The UN defines mitigation in the
context of climate change, as a human intervention to reduce the sources or
enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases. Examples include using fossil fuels more
efficiently for industrial processes or electricity generation, switching
to renewable energy (solar energy or wind power), improving
the insulation of buildings, and expanding forests and other
"sinks" to remove greater amounts of carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere.
Climate mitigation options and issues in
India
India’s future energy scenario poses
increasing challenges on account of energy security as well as environmental
considerations.
With an installed generating capacity
of less than 150,000 MW and a per capita consumption of a mere 650 units of
electricity per annum, India is plagued with huge electricity shortages,
estimated at around 11 per cent in energy terms and almost 12 per cent in peak
demand in 2008/09. Energy demand is poised to increase rapidly to fuel the
country’s development agenda and its concomitant plans of
maintaining a rate of over 8 per cent economic growth annually over the next
couple of decades. The mitigation options available to India create new
opportunities for the country, yet not without some serious challenges.
Despite efforts to
diversify the energy basket and enhance the penetration of efficient and cleaner
energy forms, coal and oil are expected to remain the dominant fuels for India
at least for the next couple of decades.
Irrespective and independent of the
outcome of international climate negotiations, several mitigation options are
closely tied to the priority areas of India’s development challenge.
Accordingly, energy security and local environmental considerations have
already propelled several policy changes over the past decade or so leading to
efficiency improvements across various sectors and the consequent steady
decline in India’s energy intensity.
Alternative energy options such as
nuclear, wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) have already begun to emerge as
important contributors to the power sector, albeit more from the point of view
of energy security considerations.
With the eight missions outlined in India’s National Action
Plan on Climate Change, an enhanced thrust on renewables (especially solar
energy) is envisaged. In addition, the National Mission on Enhanced Energy
Efficiency along with BEE’s initiatives at energy labelling and star rating of
various appliances is expected to bring in significant energy savings as
well.
Similarly, the Mission on Sustainable Habitat seeks to
improve the efficiency in the construction, transport and waste sectors.
Overall, India’s mitigation
challenges lie in ensuring energy security that will allow it to follow an
industrialization strategy that balances objectives of poverty alleviation
(with a particular focus on employment creation and access to energy), GDP
growth and environmental integrity. The most relevant mitigation
options for India, therefore, are those that locate sources of GDP growth in
these priority areas.
An analysis of technological and
policy options available to the country reveals that while there is no single
silver bullet that is capable of bringing about a transformational change in
India’s energy trajectory, the key options that are relevant include
enhancement of energy efficiency, harnessing of its large renewable energy
resources, particularly from solar and effective utilization of biomass, and
improving the energy intensity in the transport sector both via enhancing
efficiency of technologies as well as enhancing the share of the more efficient
modes of transport.
In the short term, India has relatively few choices and
would need to rapidly, but optimally, utilize its own coal resources while
restricting its dependence on coal imports to a bare minimum. Simultaneously,
the country should move quickly to a high efficiency energy path, with a
relatively low gestation period but high returns, by designing the appropriate
regulatory and incentive structures.
In the long run, the country needs to
move from being largely a fossil fuel driven energy economy, to one that is
powered by energy from clean and renewable sources. Given that the country is
blessed with a huge solar potential, it is important to make solar energy the
mainstay for satisfying national energy needs – both as a large scale generator
as well as a small scale distributed provider of energy.
Additionally, there is a need to invest liberally in
developing a bio-based economy in rural areas, supplemented with other locally
available energy forms as appropriate (wind, solar, small hydro). India has already
embarked on a 3-stage nuclear energy programme that seeks to enhance the share
of nuclear energy considerably. Also important is the need to develop a long
term, integrated mobility and freight movement strategy that is aligned with
the overall objective of driving India’s energy economy through clean energy
forms.
Notwithstanding the relevance of
these options in the overall development process, the challenge lies in the
adequacy of technological options, be it in terms of competitiveness in prices
or high upfront investment requirements, adequacy in terms of demonstrating the
successful uptake of options at the required scales, and scale-up of
The very elements that are crucial
solutions in India’s mitigation efforts are also the main challenges in areas
of developmental priority. India faces multiple challenges regarding
availability of commercially viable technologies, adequate finance as well as
supporting institutions and regulatory mechanisms. A major obstacle to the
diffusion of many mitigation technologies in the energy sector is that they are
not commercially viable, especially due to the high upfront costs. While it is
imperative to increase the pace of innovation by putting in more resources and
efforts directed at R&D to bring down technological costs, scaling up the
absorption capacity in the market is equally important. Identifying and
targeting the creation of markets where the need is highest is important to
guide the development of specific technologies and the market at large. Towards
this end, it important not only to design policies that enable the creation of
markets as well as facilitate continued investment in R&D, but to also
develop innovative business models suited to local needs and conditions.
In order to reduce the costs of new
and emerging technologies as well as create markets in priority areas, huge
direct investment as well as expenditure on support policies would be needed.
Mitigation efforts can be accelerated through enhanced international cooperation
by means of various multilateral and bilateral agreements on technological
cooperation, trade and flow of financial resources.
Accordingly, India’s success with its
mitigation efforts, keeping in mind the developmental priorities, requires
combined efforts at the national as well as the international level to
implement a three-pronged strategy targeted at addressing the following:
- Making mitigation
technologies commercially viable
- Creating and sustaining
markets for the mitigation options
- Mobilizing financial
resources at adequate scale.
By implementing
these strategies India will be able to move to a more sustainable energy future
while increasing economic development.
Innovation
in financing the climate mitigation efforts
• idea by George Soros.
• The proposal is to tap into the vast hidden reserves of cash that lie ready to keep rich nations’ economies afloat in time of crisis. The cash is in the notional form of special drawing rights (SDRs), also known as “paper gold”, issued by the IMF. SDRs do not incur interest unless the money is released into circulation. Mr Soros pointed out that the rich countries did not use it even during the recent financial crisis.
• He has asked that the developed countries hand their $150 billion of SDRs to developing countries for immediate use to combat climate change. As soon as the cash is released, it will incur interest from the IMF—currently at around 0.5%. But this should be paid by the IMF gold reserve, which is currently worth more than $100 billion. That would ensure that developing countries are not saddled by debt payments. Mr Soros said the developing countries could make money from their low-carbon investments from the SDR fund by selling carbon credits on the carbon markets.