Why in news?  India’s G-20 presidency is an opportunity for New Delhi to negotiate a deal for itself while also shaping international cooperation on just energy transitions

Highlights

• Just Energy Transition Partnership (JET-P) is emerging as the key mechanism for multilateral financing by developed countries to support an energy transition in developing countries.
• It has taken on particular significance following the insertion of the phrase ‘phase-down’ of coal in the Glasgow Pact.
• After South Africa, Indonesia, and Vietnam, India is considered the next candidate for a JET-Partnership a

Why JET-P is a cause of concern?

• Transitions affect fossil-dependent jobs and disrupt forms of future energy
• It will shrink State’s capacity to spend on welfare programmes, and increase existing economic inequities between coal and other regions.
• Among the three JET-P deals signed so far, only South Africa’s deal mentions a ‘just’ component funding reskilling and alternative employment opportunities in the coal mining regions to be financed.
• The other two JET-Ps ( Indonesia and Vietnam) are focused on mitigation finance for sector-specific transitions.

What should be India’s strategy for Transition ?

• Solarisation of agricultural electricity demand and electrification of diesel-powered Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs)
• Decentralised Renewable Energy for residential cooking and heating.
• Stimulation of energy demand through rural productivity enhancement will further aid to address the rural-urban economic divide, create rural jobs, and thereby address inter-generational and spatial inequities.
• Domestic manufacturing of clean energy components is critical to sustain a JET, build energy self-sufficiency, and tap the green jobs promise of 21st century energy.
• Optimise use of coal-fired power plants closer to where coal is mined rather than based on energy demand in States with less transportation of coal lead to fewer emissions.

India’s path to a clean energy quest

• India has signalled a commitment to clean energy with ambitious targets like 500GW of non-fossil, including 450 GW renewable energy (RE) capacity addition.
• The targets are supported through complementary policy and legislative mandates (Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act), missions (National Green Hydrogen Mission), fiscal incentives (production-linked incentives) and market mechanisms (upcoming national carbon market).
• Scrapping and replacing old vehicles, ramping up battery storage systems and setting up compressed biogas plants, and promoting coastal shipping through public-private partnerships (PPP).
• To facilitate the production of electric vehicles “customs duty exemption” is being extended to import of capital goods and machinery required for manufacture of lithium-ion cells for batteries used in electric vehicles in budget
• These interventions show India’s serious efforts at energy transition.

Way forward

• Taking above measures will not only address equity concerns across various dimensions but also create new job opportunities, achieve emissions reduction and prepare the country for deeper decarbonisation through a future coal phase-down

Question

• Explain, How is India’s just energy transition is more than a coal story?