Green hydrogen holds strong promise for India’s energy self-reliance
Asia has a very significant role to play in the global energy transition. However, Asia is not a homogenous entity — its economies are at different stages of development with vast disparities in energy endowments.
India is an important part of the Asian energy transition. As the country’s largest private sector energy and infrastructure conglomerate, the Adani Group is playing a leading role in the provision of affordable, clean, and reliable power to accelerate economic growth needed for improving the quality of life of India’s citizens.
First, some facts. It is all too easy for the western media to portray India as one of the top five emitters of GHG emissions. However, this gravely misses the point: India’s per capita emissions are one-fifth to one-tenth of that of the developed economies. The nation’s per capita energy consumption is less than half of the world’s average, and the disparity is even starker when one considers India’s 3% share of accumulated emissions, which is less than one-thirtieth of that of the US and the EU on a per capita basis.
The above facts notwithstanding, both developed and developing countries must work together to address global warming. Given that developing economies are more likely to face disproportionately adverse effects of climate change, they do not have the luxury of pointing the finger at the developed world for causing the problem. Rather, they have to chart a path to grow responsibly. Developed economies also bear a responsibility to support developing countries, so that these countries are not forced to sacrifice much needed economic growth while bearing a disproportionate share of the burden of mitigating climate change.
One of history’s great economic miracles has been China’s rapid growth which has transformed the material well-being of its people. While it may be common to hyphenate China and India, any comparison needs to be nuanced notwithstanding the similarity in the size of their billion plus populations. India is 10-15 years behind China where rapid industrialization during 2000-2013 took China’s current share of global GHG emissions to 24%. India has a long way to go in its economic development trajectory — India’s per capita electric power and cement consumption are just one fourth of that of China.
India’s path to a $5 trillion economy by 2025 requires an investment of more than $800 billion. This investment will go towards scaling up the nation’s energy system and building much needed infrastructure, which will lead to an inevitable rise in emissions. For this reason, India has focussed two of its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) on reducing the emission intensity of its economy, as well as an ambitious plan to increase the proportion of renewables in its electricity generation mix. India is well on track to exceeding these two NDCs as part of its Paris obligations.
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