Clearing the air with president elect biden

Clearing the air with president elect biden

Climate change is big on America’s President-Elect Joe Biden’s agenda for governance, of which clean energy is an important plank. Reviving the India-US partnership in clean energy, technology and expanding it to newer areas such as climate resilience is clearly on the cards. This was evident from first phone call between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President-Elect Biden.

Over the last four years, India’s commitment to climate action has deepened. The enhanced renewable energy target of 450 GW by 2030 and the International Solar Alliance attest to this. Given India’s development deficits, actualising its ambitions will require greater collaboration with partners like the US, leveraging India’s ambitious clean energy plans and the $2 trillion clean energy investment that the incoming American President announced as candidate. This partnership should deepen and scale up the development and research partnership that has been put in place in 2016. But given the scale of India’s ambition, the partnership must focus on new and emerging technology as well. India can be a research partner but also a partner for demonstration of technology at scale. Clean and renewable energy must form the core of the energy partnership. The realities of India’s energy profile, with coal continuing as the dominant, near-term energy source, and Biden’s goal of climate neutrality by 2050 make carbon capture utilisation and storage, clean coal technologies and bioenergy vital parts of this partnership.

Both India and the US are playing a game of catch-up, making the two natural allies in climate action: India wants to emerge a leader in clean energy while growing its economy, and the US would like to don the mantle of climate leadership.