India – Finland Green transition Tie-Up

In News

• NITI Aayog officials met a Finland delegation to discuss the Scandinavian nation’s offerings in the green energy sector in India. 

Key highlights of the meeting

• Finland has a lot of experience in transitioning to green energy. Finland’s experience in reaching net zero is by 2035.
• Scandinavian nation’s offerings includes: the green energy sector and explore potential partnerships for India’s green transition and decarbonisation efforts, including sharing of resources like technology and finances.
• Other related sectors: including grid balancing and grid stability, Bio-fuels, green hydrogen, energy storage and waste-to-energy.
• Private and Public partnership: The two countries also discussed how their private companies could collaborate with each other and the role the two governments could play in public procurement of technologies from these companies.
• Virtual Network Centre on Quantum Computing: India and Finland announced the establishment of an Indo-Finnish Virtual Network Centre on Quantum Computing and inked a formal memorandum of understanding to that effect.

What is the meaning of Net Zero?

• A state in which a country’s emissions are compensated by absorption and removal of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the atmosphere is called Net Zero State; it is also referred to as carbon-neutrality.
• It is done through natural processes as well as futuristic technologies such as carbon capture and storage.

How Net Zero is achieved?

• By creating carbon sinks by growing forests. 
  • Until recently, the Amazon rainforests in South America, which are the largest tropical forests in the world, were carbon sinks.
    • But eastern parts of these forests have started emitting CO2 instead of absorbing carbon emissions as a result of significant deforestation.
  • A country may also have negative emissions if the absorption and removal exceed the actual emissions. 
    • Bhutan has negative emissions because it absorbs more than it emits.

India’s commitment

• India will bring its non-fossil energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030.
• By 2030 India will fulfil 50% of its energy requirement through renewable energy.
• India will cut down its net projected carbon emission by 1 billion tonnes from now until 2030.
• By 2030 India will bring down the carbon intensity of its economy by more than 45%.
• By 2070 India will achieve the target of ‘net zero’.

Other steps to be taken for Net Zero Emissions 

• Climate Justice:
  • Developed countries ought to be providing at least $1 trillion in climate finance to assist developing countries and those most vulnerable.
  • Taking on net-zero targets requires a sharp shift to clean energy sources that will impose a steep cost.
• Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities:
  • Principles of Equity and Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC) and
  • Recognition of the very different national circumstances of countries to be respected. 

• Mitigation and Adaptation:
  • There must be a balanced focus on climate adaptation as well as mitigation.
  • Focussing just on the mitigation part would be an injustice against developing nations.
• Resilient infrastructure and agriculture: 
  • There are changes in cropping patterns, there are floods and a great need to make agriculture resilient to these shocks.
  • Put warning systems in place to avoid loss of homes, livelihoods and lives.

Way Ahead

• People Centred Clean Energy Transitions: 
  • Citizens must be active participants in the entire process, making them feel part of the transition and not simply subject to it.
  • The transition to net-zero is for and about people.
• Skill Development:
  • It is thus paramount that not every worker in the fossil fuel industry can ease into a clean energy job
  • So governments need to promote training and devote resources to facilitating new opportunities.
• Phasing out Fossils:
  • Countries need to accelerate the phaseout of coal, encourage investment in renewables, curtail deforestation and speed up the switch to electric vehicles
• No one size fits all approach:
  • Final aim of the Paris Agreement is global in scope.
    • But each country will need to design its own strategy, taking into account its specific circumstances.

• Adaptation of sustainable mode of living:
  • Certain practices of traditional communities ought to be made part of school curricula 
• India can be a role model:
  • The lessons from India’s efforts at adaptation in programmes ought to be popularised globally, such as 
    • Jal Jeevan mission, 
    • Swachh Bharat mission and 
    • Mission ujwala.

Source: IE