There
is a growing global unanimity on addressing the
climate change issue in right earnest. In fact,
climate change is a threesome issue of technology,
development and environment. It is also a pointer
to the new opportunities of moving towards a low
carbon economy. The Inter-governmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) in its recently released
report has evidenced scientifically the human
induced climate change. Carbon di-oxide is responsible
for more than 50% of the man made greenhouse effect,
making it the most important contributor to the
climate change.
The developing countries like India are more susceptible
to the risks of climate change than the affluent
nations of the world. The Govt. of India have
already constituted a high level advisory group
on climate change. The Prime Minster's Council
on climate change will co-ordinate National action
plans for assessment, adaptation and mitigation
of climate change and advise the Govt. on pro-active
measures that can be taken by India to deal with
the challenge of climate change.
The Renewable Energy (RE) electricity generation
capacity touched an all time high of 240 GW worldwide
in 2007, which meant an increase of around 50%
over 2004 capacity. RE technologies more so wind
energy, regarded as the largest component of such
a capacity is fast gaining ground. So is the Solar
PV grid interfaced technology, which is the fastest
growing RE technology today with a growth rate
of about 50%. In 2007, more than $100 billion
was invested in new RE capacity and production
plants in addition to research and development.
Several factors have contributed to such a growing
investor (s) interest, which also include feed-in-tariff
policy and CO
2 abatement.
European Union has already set up a 20% target
for RE by 2020 with India and China turning out
to be the hot destinations for RE investments
for a variety of end use applications, including
that for Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission abatement.
There is a sizeable potential of GHG emission
reduction in India meaning thereby that it can
avail new market opportunity via the Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM) projects. Available estimates
reveal that India can capture about 10% of the
global CDM market with annual estimated revenue
ranging between US$15 million to 330 million.
The Hon'ble Prime Minister of India has recently
appointed a former Foreign Secretary as his Special
Envoy on climate change indicating the significance
attached by his government to this vexing issue
of high global concern.
Let us be optimistic enough that the proposal
for formation of an expert committee to assess
the impact of climate change
on India will finally pave the way for an increased
market penetration of RE technologies. After all,
our country is soaked in
the sunshine and cooled by the fast blowing wind
in the coastal areas. That is why we should keep
deliberating on RE and
its accompanying merits and challenges on a never
ending basis.
