Aside from areas such as defence and trade, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday agreed to strengthen the cooperation between the two nations on one of the most urgent topics of the day — green energy.
It is not an accident that green energy becomes an essential takeaway from the talks between the two top political executives of India and Germany. India is an energy-hungry nation which has set an ambitious goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2070. It has also affixed certain targets to achieve by 2030, viz. increase renewables capacity to 500 GW from the present 157 GW which will meet 50 per cent of its energy requirements which share is currently 40 per cent, reduce cumulative emissions by one billion tonnes and reduce emissions intensity of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 45 per cent. As for Germany, it is one of the few large economies with a commitment to green energy — Renewables supply 47 per cent of its energy today and the country wants to raise the share to 80 per cent by 2030 and to 100 per cent by 2035.
India has of late been promoting all existing and futuristic technologies to harness green power. The government recently set up a National Green Hydrogen Mission with an outlay of close to Rs 20,000 crores to promote development of technologies and their applications, facilitate demand creation, production, utilisation and export of green hydrogen. The government expects an investment of over Rs 8 lakh crores and creation of over six lakh jobs in the sector over a period of time. On its part, Germany has promised to invest lose to $3 billion in global green hydrogen economy.
The two nations have been on a path of cooperation for some time, and late last year, the German government committed 10 billion euros to India to help achieve climate action targets set for 2030, basically to promote production of energy from renewables and non-fossil fuels.
The per capita energy consumption of the two most populous nations — China and India — are, respectively, one-half and one-tenth of that of the largest economy — the United States. China today is the world’s largest producer of green energy; renewable power plants account for 47 of the total installed capacity. It is moving very fast on the course to replace fossil fuels as their energy source.
Given the development goals of its 141 crore people, India faces an enormous demand for energy. And it will not be able to bank on fossil fuel in its pursuit to remove absolute poverty, a luxury China was able to afford while it was pursuing the same goal. Given the alarming data coming in on global warming and climate change, we will have to depend on green energy sources to meet our development goals — be it creation of infrastructure, promotion of education and healthcare, reform of the agriculture sector and even augmenting our defence capability. But in terms of reduction in carbon emission and making available better and cheaper technologies, India tying up with the global leader in green technology will benefit not just these two nations but the whole world.
