clean energy

Coal India Could Layoff More Than 70,000 Workers by 2050: Report

The report shows that a just and sustainable transition to clean energy will be crucial, especially for specific regions in the country that depend heavily on coal-based jobs, said experts.

New Delhi: As the world shifts to cleaner energy sources such as solar and wind power, more than 4 lakh workers in the coal industry will lose their jobs by 2050, a report released by the Global Energy Monitor on October 10 says. Workers in China and India will be hardest hit – the report predicts that Coal India will cut down on more than 70,000 jobs by then.

The report throws light on how crucial a just transition to clean energy will be, experts said.

Coal jobs to be hit

Decarbonisation – reducing the carbon emissions produced by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels – is one of the main techniques advocated to keep global warming below specific levels so as to reduce the impacts of climate change (such as heat waves, intense rainfall and other extreme weather events) worldwide. One means of decarbonisation is to shift to cleaner forms of energy, such as solar and wind power, and decrease coal production by shutting down existing mines. But what of the coal mines that have to close down? The coal industry is a crucial source of livelihood, especially in rural areas in developing countries.

The Global Energy Monitor, a US-based NGO that compiles and publishes information on clean energy worldwide – including transitioning to such energy sources, compiled data on employment at 4,300 active and proposed coal mines and projects around the world that are cumulatively responsible for more than 90% of global coal production. This was done through the Global Coal Mine Tracker. The analysis included data from mines in 70 countries, including India, which has an estimated 3.3 lakh workers in coal mines.

The report finds that nearly 27 lakh coal miners produce 93% of the world’s coal, with the vast majority working in Asia (around 22 lakh jobs). By 2050, around 9.9 lakh coal mine jobs will no longer exist due to the closure of mines across the world. Over one-third of the existing workforce will face layoffs, even without climate pledges or policies to phase out coal. Currently, 4,14,200 workers operate mines that may reach their end of operation before 2035. So the layoffs by 2035 will affect on average 100 workers per day, per the report.

The vast majority of them are in Asia alone. The Global Energy Monitor report estimates that China and India will bear the brunt of layoffs as coal mines are closed down. China has more than 1.5 million coal miners who produce over 85% of its coal, which accounts for half of the world’s output. India is the world’s second-largest coal producer after China and the state-owned Coal India will face the most potential layoffs by 2050: an estimated 73,800 direct workers, per the report.

The report also finds that “most mines expected to close in the coming decades have no planning underway to extend the life of those operations or manage a transition to a post-coal economy”.

A coal mine at an unspecified location in India. Credit: Nitin Kirloskar/Flickr, CC BY 2.0

A coal mine at an unspecified location in India. Photo: Nitin Kirloskar/Flickr, CC BY 2.0

‘Regional balances are crucial’

“The coal industry has a long list of mines that will close in the near term – many of them state-owned enterprises with a government stake,” commented researcher Tiffany Means, one of the co-authors of the Global Energy Monitor report. “Governments need to shoulder their share of the burden to ensure a managed transition for those workers and communities as we move into a clean energy economy.”

A “just” transition involves, among other things, ensuring the rehabilitation of workers who have lost their jobs. According to the International Labour Organisation, a just transition is about “greening the economy in a way that is as fair and inclusive as possible to everyone concerned, creating decent work opportunities and leaving no one behind”.

Also Read: Life in India’s Oldest Coal Belt Shows Why Plans for Transition Must Begin Now

The report is “a wakeup call to the enormity of the problem at hand”, said Runa Sarkar, professor at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. “The coal mining region most affected by mine closure is West Bengal in India. Further, for every worker affected in the formal economy, at least four others are affected in the informal sector,” said Sarkar in a press release.

Currently, however, coal production is on the rise in the country, with talks of reopening some closed mines to meet current demand, she added. On the other hand, the Indian government in October 2022 also issued fresh guidelines on mine closure taking into account its associated ecological and socioeconomic complexities, she said.

“There is a lot of work around building a circular economy around coal which recognises that a coal mining township soon becomes about much more than about coal itself,” she commented.

“Finally, one must take into account that areas which are rich in coal are not the ones where the sun shines or the wind blows in abundance, which in turn implies a widening of regional imbalances as a result of mine closures. All this necessitates a more broad-based bottom-up discussion around energy transition to ensure one which is both regionally balanced, sustainable and just.”

When It Comes to Clean Electricity, India Ranks 9th Among the G20: Report

India’s continued and high dependence on coal for power is to blame. Brazil, which will take over G20 presidency from India next year, is in first place in the think tank Ember’s fourth annual Global Electricity Review.

New Delhi: Brazil has the highest share of clean electricity among the G20 nations, as per a report released on May 15 by international energy think tank Ember. India is behind, at ninth spot among the 20 countries part of the group, since it still relies largely on coal for power (74% of India’s energy is still coal-powered).

Worldwide, wind and solar contributed to a record 12% of global electricity in 2022, the report found. And though the share of coal power in G20 countries has reduced since the Paris Agreement of 2015, the change is not fast enough to limit global warming to 1.5 Degrees Celsius, the report noted.

Transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy

Switching to clean energy sources – such as wind and solar – are among the actions that nations have to take as part of the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty which requires countries to reduce carbon emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. One way that they do this is by listing renewable energy targets as part of their Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs. India, for instance, has pledged to achieve about 50% cumulative electric power of installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030.

Ember, a not-for-profit energy think tank, analyses the resulting changes in global electricity generation and releases annual Global Electricity Reviews. On May 15, it released its fourth annual Global Electricity Review, which analysed changes in global electricity generation for the year 2022 based on electricity data from 78 countries. It also provided data on the G20 countries.

Per the report, Brazil (which is set to host the G20 next year) has the highest share of clean electricity in the G20. In 2022, Brazil generated 89% of its electricity from clean sources (dominated by hydropower at 63%). Fossil fuels accounted for only 11% of Brazil’s generation in 2022.

India – which assumed the presidency of the G20 last year – is behind, at ninth spot among the G20 countries, due to its huge reliance on coal-powered energy sources. India’s demand for electricity is growing: in 2022, it rose to 1,836 TWh (terawatt hours). It is getting 9% of its electricity from solar and wind, but still relies predominantly (77%) on coal for electricity generation.

“Brazil is way ahead of India in securing a clean electricity system,” said Dave Jones, Ember’s Head of Data Insights, in a press release. “G20 hosts can both learn from each others’ successes.”

Though Brazil had a headstart with a strong base in hydroelectric power, they also grew their wind power by 16 times in the last decade, he said.

The share of coal power in G20 countries has reduced since the Paris Agreement of 2015. According to the report, the fastest decline among G20 countries has been achieved by the United Kingdom, which reduced its coal generation by 93% since the Paris Agreement. Among the advanced (OECD) economies in the G20, there has been a reduction in coal generation by 42% in absolute terms, from 2,624 TWh in 2015 to 1,855 TWh in 2022, a press release also stated.

Globally, wind and solar contributed to a record 12% of global electricity generated in 2022, per the report. The year 2022 may hit “peak” emissions, as countries try to cut down on fossil fuel use.

Also read: India’s U-Turn on ‘Clean’ Energy Is a Bad Move

Change not fast enough

However, this transition to clean energy is still not enough to limit global warming to 1.5° Celsius, the report said. There is still a huge reliance on fossil fuels. Thirteen of the G20 countries still get over half of their electricity from fossil fuels as of 2022, the report found. Saudi Arabia relies entirely on oil and gas; South Africa (86%), Indonesia (82%) and India (77%) are the next most reliant on fossil fuels (predominantly coal) for electricity generation.

Just five G20 nations have seen coal increase in absolute terms since 2015: China, India (a 35% increase), Indonesia, Russia and Türkiye. Among those, China and India have been able to reduce the percentage share of coal in that period, as they focus on scaling up wind and solar to meet rising demand, the report noted. India achieved a small decline in the electricity generated from coal – from 76% of electricity from coal in 2015 to 74% in 2022.

“G20 countries are mostly already moving towards a cleaner electricity system but this now needs to be accelerated,” said Malgorzata Wiatros-Motyka, senior analyst at Ember and lead author of the 2023 report, in a press release. “The cheapest and fastest way to achieve that will be through the rapid roll out of proven technologies – wind and solar – not through gambling on unproven technologies like fossil fuels with carbon capture.”

Replacing coal with wind and solar is the “closest thing we have to a silver bullet for the climate,” she also said in the report. “Not only do solar and wind cut emissions fast, they also bring down electricity costs and reduce health-harming pollution.”

This decade is “the beginning of the end of the fossil [fuel] age”, said Wiatros-Motyka in the report.

“We are entering the clean power era. The stage is set for wind and solar to achieve a meteoric rise to the top…Change is coming fast. However, it all depends on the actions taken now by governments, businesses and citizens to put the world on a pathway to clean power by 2040,” she said.

India needs to “build upon its recent solar power surge”, Aditya Lolla, Senior Electricity Policy Analyst, Ember, said in the report. “It needs to ramp up renewable generation capacity to meet its growing demand, build enough storage capacity to meet peak demand and develop infrastructure to facilitate grid integration.”

However, solar, hydro and wind energy, though labeled as clean, sustainable sources of energy, are not necessarily green or just: they can have far-reaching social, environmental and ecological consequences. For instance, studies have shown that India is among the regions globally that have the highest proportion of renewable energy facilities coming up in important conservation areas.

The ‘Breakthrough’ in Nuclear Fusion Energy Is No Cause for Celebration

The advances announced by the US Department of Energy can better be described as “micron-stones” rather than milestones, and that too on a path that might never lead to economical electricity generation.

This article was originally published on The Wire Science, our website dedicated to science, health and environment reportage and analysis. Follow, read and share.

On December 13, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced that the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory had reached a “milestone”: the achievement of “ignition” in nuclear fusion earlier in the month. That announcement was hailed by many as a step into a fossil fuel-free energy future. US Senate majority leader Charles Schumer, for example, claimed that we were “on the precipice of a future no longer reliant on fossil fuels but instead powered by new clean fusion energy”.

But in truth, generating electrical power from fusion commercially or at an industrial scale is likely unattainable in any realistic sense, at least within the lifetimes of most readers of this article. At the same time, this experiment will contribute far more to US efforts to further develop its terrifyingly destructive nuclear weapons arsenal.

Over the last decade or so, there have been many similar announcements featuring breathless language about breakthroughs, milestones, and advances. These statements have come with unfailing regularity from NIF (for example, in 2013) and the larger set of laboratories and commercial firms pursuing the idea of nuclear fusion. Apart from the United States, similar announcements have come from Germany, China and the United Kingdom. France is expected to take its turn once the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) starts operating. The reactor is currently being built in Cadarache, France, at an estimated cost of somewhere between $25 billion to as high as $65 billion, much higher than the original estimate of $5.6 billion.

These incredibly high costs also explain why such announcements are made in the first place: without the excitement created by these hyped-up statements, it would be impossible to get funded for the decades it takes to plan and build these facilities. Conceptual design work on ITER began in 1988.

Of course, that timescale pales in comparison to the time period of the first major announcement about fusion-generated electricity. That took place in 1955 when Homi Bhabha, the architect of India’s nuclear programme, told the first International Conference on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva:

“I venture to predict that a method will be found for liberating fusion energy in a controlled manner within the next two decades. When that happens the energy problems of the world will have been solved for ever.”

That would not be the last prediction about the imminence of fusion power that would be wrong.

Three challenges for nuclear fusion

The recent “breakthrough” that NIF announced pertains to what I would term “physics challenges”. One can identify three stages of physics challenges.

The first challenge is to have enough fusion reactions in the pellet that is blasted by lasers to produce more energy than is put into the target. That was what seems to have been seen at NIF: the reports say that the lasers pumped in 2.05 megajoules of energy and about 3.15 megajoules came out. All of this over a time period of a few nanoseconds (a nanosecond is one billionth of a second). The figure of 3.15 megajoules might seem like a lot but it is only 0.875 kilowatt-hours, that too of heat, which would produce perhaps 0.3 kilowatt-hours of electricity if it was used to boil water and drive a turbine. (For comparison, a rooftop solar panel that costs under Rs 30,000 in Delhi could generate around 5,000 times more electrical energy in a year.)

The second physics challenge is to produce more energy than is used by the facility as a whole. NIF is far from meeting this challenge. It admitted that just the 192 lasers consumed around 400 megajoules in the process of blasting the pellet. To this, we have to add all the energy that goes into running the other equipment and the facility as a whole.

The final physics challenge is to produce more energy than what is required to construct the facility and all the equipment. In the case of the ITER experiment, for example, it has been estimated that “the tokamak itself will weigh as much as three Eiffel towers [and the] total weight of the central ITER facility is around 400,000 tons”. As Daniel Jassby, a retired physicist from the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, put it, all this “must appear on the negative side of the energy accounting ledger”.

If these physics challenges are not met, of course, then one has a permanent loss-making facility in energy terms. NIF is far from meeting the latter challenges.

An artist’s rendering shows a NIF target pellet inside a hohlraum capsule with laser beams entering through openings on either end. Photo: US Department of Energy, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The next stage can be called an “engineering challenge” and that revolves around the question: how do you convert this experimental set up that produces energy for a microscopic fraction of a second into a continuous source of electricity that operates 24 hours a day and 365 days per year. To do that, these fusion reactions should occur several times each second, each second of the day, each day of the year. As of now, the lasers can fire only once a day, at a single target. To move from that state to what is required will need an improvement by a factor of over 500,000 (assuming around six shots per second).

But it is not just firing the laser. Each of these explosions produces a large amount of debris, which would have to be cleared. And then a new pellet has to be placed with utmost precision at the very spot where the lasers can focus their beams.

If all of this is not trouble enough, there is fuel procurement. NIF uses a “gold cylinder with a frozen pellet of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium”. Deuterium and tritium are isotopes of hydrogen. Deuterium is quite common but tritium is very scarce, because it decays radioactively with a half-life of only around 12 years. Fusion proponents often talk about generating tritium in situ, but this is an exceedingly difficult task, as Jasby has explained.

Even if one were to adopt the approach of watching superhero movies and willingly suspend disbelief to assume that all these engineering challenges are solved, then there is an even more difficult challenge: to make this incredibly complicated process into an economically competitive way of generating electricity. If one goes by history, the last could be a killer as has been the case with nuclear fission power, which is a far easier process in comparison to fusion.

Thus, these advances can better be described as “micron-stones”, to coin a term, rather than milestones, and that too on a path that might never lead to economical electricity generation. In the meanwhile, this recent experiment is far more likely to be useful to nuclear weapons designers.

Also Read: The Devastating Effects of Nuclear Weapons

NIF and nuclear weapons

NIF’s chief purpose is not generating electricity or even finding a way to do so. NIF was set up as part of the Science Based Stockpile Stewardship Program, which was the ransom paid to the US nuclear weapons laboratories for forgoing the right to test after the United States signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. This is a purpose NIF can start fulfilling without ever generating any electricity.

The main utility that NIF offers nuclear weapons designers and planners is by providing a greater understanding of the underlying science. As the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s webpage proudly proclaims:

“NIF’s high energy density and inertial confinement fusion experiments, coupled with the increasingly sophisticated simulations available from some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, increase our understanding of weapon physics, including the properties and survivability of weapons-relevant materials”.

Another 1995 document explains that NIF would provide lots of “neutrons with the very short pulse widths characteristic of low-yield nuclear intercepts, that can be used to establish lethal criteria for chemical/biological agents and nuclear warhead targets”. In other words, NIF could help with modelling the use of nuclear weapons to destroy chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

NIF might even help with developing new kinds of nuclear weapons. Back in 1998, Arjun Makhijani, who has a PhD in nuclear fusion, and Hisham Zeriffi suggested that NIF could help with the development of pure fusion weapons, i.e., thermonuclear weapons that do not need a nuclear fission primary. If that were to happen – and that is a big if, as is the case with most fusion activities – that would obviate the need for highly enriched uranium or plutonium, which are currently the main obstacles to making nuclear weapons.

An illustration showing the process of nuclear fusion. Photo: Someone/Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0

NIF, then, is a way to continue investment into modernising nuclear weapons, albeit without explosive tests, and dressing it up as a means to produce “clean” energy. The managers of NIF and the larger laboratory in which it is housed are careful to highlight different promises based on the circumstance they are speaking at. When anthropologist Hugh Gusterson asked a senior official about the purpose of the laser programme, the official replied, “It depends who I’m talking to…One moment it’s an energy program, the next it’s a weapons programme. It just depends on the audience”.

Dangerous distraction

The tremendous media attention paid to NIF and ignition amounts to a distraction – and a dangerous one at that.

As the history of nuclear fusion since the 1950s shows, this complicated technology is not going to produce cheap and reliable electricity to light bulbs or power computers anytime in the foreseeable future.

But nuclear fusion falls even shorter when we consider climate change, and the need to cut carbon emissions drastically and rapidly. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that to stop irreversible damage from climate change, the world will have to achieve zero net emissions by 2050. Given this relatively short timeline to turn around our economies and ways of living, spending billions of dollars on this sure-to-fail attempt to develop fusion power only amounts to diverting money and resources away from proven and safer renewable energy sources and associated technologies. Investment in research and development into fusion is bad news for the climate.

In the meanwhile, nuclear fusion experiments like those at NIF will further the risk posed by the nuclear arsenal of the US, and, indirectly, the arsenals of the eight other countries known to possess nuclear weapons. The world has been lucky so far to avoid nuclear war. But this luck will not hold up forever. We need nuclear weapons abolition, but programmes like NIF offer nuclear weapons modernisation, which is just a means to assure destruction forever.

M.V. Ramana is the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security and Professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, and the author of The Power Of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy In India.

US VP Harris Announces $20 Million New Clean Energy Funding for Mekong Region

“Bold climate action is not only necessary to protect the people of our planet and our natural resources, but it is also powerful driver of economic growth,” she said.

Bangkok: US Vice President Kamala Harris announced $20 million in new funding for clean energy projects in the Mekong region, during the last day of her tour of Thailand on Sunday following a regional summit.

She spoke to civil society and business leaders in Bangkok after the close of a meeting of the 21-member APEC bloc a day earlier.

“Bold climate action is not only necessary to protect the people of our planet and our natural resources, but it is also powerful driver of economic growth,” she said.

In an earlier news release, she said the administration would request funding from Congress for the Japan-US-Mekong Power Partnership (JUMPP), through which the two countries partner with regional nations to promote sustainable energy.

“In particular we know that the climate crisis presents a real threat to the communities who depend on the Mekong River. In Thailand, in Vietnam, Laos.”

Here’s Why the Latest Budget Is at Odds With Itself When it Comes to Environment

According to environmentalists, the budget’s thrust on development through infrastructure and megaprojects could aggravate the environmental degradation that India already faces.

Kochi: Key words like ‘climate action’ and ‘energy transitions’ figured prominently in the Union Budget 2022 presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the parliament on February 1. Despite this refreshing focus, the budget falls short in several ways in addressing these aspects, say researchers.

According to environmentalists, the budget doesn’t hold much for the environment or its protection either. The thrust on development through infrastructure and megaprojects could aggravate the environmental degradation that India already faces, they say.

The good news

First, the good news.

The government will focus on promoting chemical-free natural farming starting with farmers’ lands close to river Ganga, said Sitharaman. The Union government has also increased allocations for the Jal Jeevan Mission from a revised estimate of Rs 45,011 crore to a budget estimate of Rs 60,000 crore for the fiscal year 2022-23. The estimated total expenditure for the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) is higher this time at Rs 3,030 crore, when compared to Rs 2,520 crore in FY22. For the Deep Ocean Mission, the government has spent Rs 150 crore in FY22, and Rs 650 crore has been allocated in this year’s budget. The National Mission for Green India, Project Tiger and funds to control pollution have also seen increases in allocations when compared to last year.

Also read: Budget: Big Fillip to Modern Infra Belies Stress on Climate Action, Clean Energy

India’s climate targets – including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent announcement that India will achieve net zero emissions by 2070 – have meant that immediate action would be required for a transition to clean energy. The Union Budget didn’t disappoint on that account.

Energy transition and climate action (along with productivity enhancement and investment, and sunrise opportunities) were one of the four main priorities listed in the budget. The finance minister made several climate-related announcements in her budget speech. She announced an additional allocation of Rs 19,500 crore for production-linked incentives (PLI) for manufacturing of high-efficiency solar photovoltaic modules.

This, however, is not new. R.K. Singh, power and new and renewable energy minister, had announced in November last year that the Union government will increase the funding under the PLI scheme for domestic solar cells and module manufacturing to Rs 24,000 crore from the existing Rs 4,500 crore.

As part of transitioning to a carbon neutral economy, 5-7% biomass pellets will be co-fired in thermal power plants resulting in CO2 savings of 38 million metric tons (MMT) annually, Sitharaman said in her budget speech. This would also help avoid stubble burning in agriculture fields, she added.

This is a positive move: co-firing biomass pellets with coal can result in a reduction of coal dependence and a sharp decline in pollution levels, reported Down to Earth. However, it is one that has already been recommended by the Union government’s Commission for Air Quality Management.

For an electric vehicle push, the government also plans to bring in a battery-swapping policy. Battery-swapping is exchanging a discharged electric car battery for one that is already charged – a move that can decrease the long refuelling times that is one of the major limitations of zero-emission vehicles.

“Sovereign Green Bonds” will be issued to mobilise resources for green infrastructure, and the proceeds will be deployed in public sector projects which help in reducing the carbon intensity of the economy. The budget also includes four pilot projects for coal gasification, or converting coal into chemicals that can help generate electricity. In urban areas, special mobility zones with zero fossil-fuel policy will be promoted, Sitharaman said.

Also read: Budget 2022 Shows How Quickly We Forget the Social and Welfare Net That Served Us During COVID

‘More jargon, less incentives on clean energy’

The increased funding under the PLI scheme, the inclusion of a ‘zero fossil fuel’ policy, electric vehicle policy, battery-swapping and coal gasification policy are all steps “in the right direction”, said energy economist Vibhuti Garg, Lead India, Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

Furthermore, the launching of “sovereign green bonds” will also help reduce the carbon intensity of the economy and enable access to a large pool of money for the energy transition, she added.

While “jargon terms” such as “Energy Transition”, “Climate Finance” and “Inclusive Growth” were mentioned multiple times in the budget speech, the announcements appear to fall short of “promoting clean energy in an accelerated manner”, she further said.

“At a macro level, an increase in capex will boost economic growth, however, not much additional budgetary support or tax incentives have been provided to clean energy both grid and off-grid including solar rooftop, storage technologies and green hydrogen. This is despite the big expectation that support will be provided to these new technologies to improve its commercial viability,” she wrote in an email to The Wire Science.

With India’s ambitious target of 500 gigawatts (GW) of non fossil fuel energy by 2030, new technologies will require support, she said.

“The government should have provided a budget allocation and reduction of duties to allow the deployment of rooftop solar, storage, off-shore wind, green hydrogen etc. Further, [it] didn’t include any mention of support for the closure of inefficient fossil fuel plants, nor did it deal with increasing air pollution problems,” she noted.

While the Union government made very specific allocations to tackle air pollution in the last budget (it had announced Rs 2,217 crore for 42 urban centres with over one million population), there are no additional funds to specifically address the issue this year. However, several steps have been taken under this head, said the ‘Implementation of Budget’ document. The 15th Finance Commission has identified 42 urban centres and state-level monitoring programmes that are being constituted to tackle air pollution, says the document.

Allocations for climate action are not adequate, said writer and activist Nityanand Jayaraman of the Vettiver Collective. The allocation for the Climate Change Action Plan is Rs 30 crore, he pointed out.

“That is a joke for a country the size of India. It is less than the allocation for the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change’s regional offices (Rs 50 crores),” he said.

While the budget prioritised climate action as one of the four pillars and explicitly acknowledged the threat of climate risks, it clearly missed out on providing a booster shot to climate adaptation and resilience, said Abinash Mohanty, programme lead, Council on Energy, Environment and Water.

“While a renewed focus on urban planning was one of the key takeaways in the budget, there was no mention of climate-proofing these investments and infrastructure. More than 75% of Indian districts are extreme event hotspots as a result of which India has suffered an annual average loss of $87 billion.”

Infrastructure comes at a price

While improving infrastructure also includes developing dense charging infrastructure and grid-scale battery systems that will help India reach its climate targets, it also comprises large-scale projects that could have detrimental impacts on the environment. A slew of infrastructure projects have been envisioned under the PM Gati Shakti scheme. Though the finance minister claimed that the approach to developing all this infrastructure will be through clean energy, the sheer scale at which these projects will be implemented make that look uncertain.

For instance, a whopping 25,000 kilometres of national highways will be expanded this year, according to Sitharaman. For this, Rs 20,000 crore will be mobilised through innovative ways of financing to complement the public resources, said a government press release.

Additionally, the Union government will also earmark a whopping Rs 1 lakh crore this year to assist states in developing infrastructure. These will be through 50-year interest-free loans which are over and above the normal borrowing that states are eligible for, Sitharaman said. These will include funding for projects under the PM Gati Shakti scheme as well.

Land Conflict Watch, a data research agency that tracks disputes on natural resources, found that infrastructure projects affect more than 15 lakh hectares of land area in India. Currently, as per the data, more than 4.4 million people are affected and there are 315 ongoing conflicts surrounding infrastructure projects. This could very well increase with the rise in the number of infrastructure projects.

“The budgetary allocations for schemes and projects with significant climate changing potential and impacts on biodiversity and livelihoods, are tens of thousands of times greater than what has been allocated for climate change action, pollution control and biodiversity protection,” Jayaraman said.

“Gati Shakti alone, with its seven engines of growth (roads, railways, airports, ports, mass transport, waterways, logistics infrastructure), will be sufficient to drive the last few nails into India’s ecological coffin. These infrastructures of mega commerce will replace the infrastructures of survival of ordinary Indians and worsen social inequality and environmental degradation.”

Also read: Without Addressing Legacy Issues, Can Digitising Land Records in India Be a Game Changer?

More river-linking projects in the works

It appears that the ambitious and controversial Ken-Betwa river linking project was only a precursor to more. Draft Detailed Project Reports for five more river linking projects have been finalised, Sitharaman announced. These are the Damanganga-Pinjal, Par-Tapi- Narmada, Godavari-Krishna, Krishna-Pennar and the Pennar-Cauvery.

“Once a consensus is reached among the beneficiary states the Union government will provide support for implementation,” the finance minister said.

She further announced Rs 1,400 crore for the ambitious and controversial Ken-Betwa river linking project for FY23. The project, incidentally, has come under huge criticism from water experts, conservationists and activists (both social and environmental) for the numerous deleterious hydrological, social and environmental effects it would have in the Bundelkhand area of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

While the budget talks of climate action and protecting the environment, it also pushes “ecologically disastrous river-linking projects”, Rajya Sabha member and former environment minister Jairam Ramesh wrote on Twitter, after the budget announcement.

“On the one hand, the Budget talks of climate action and protecting the environment. On the other, it pushes ecologically disastrous river-linking projects. Rhetoric sounds nice. But actions matter more. On that front, the Modi govt [sic] is on a destructive path.”

On the one hand, the Budget talks of climate action and protecting the environment. On the other, it pushes ecologically disastrous river-linking projects. Rhetoric sounds nice. But actions matter more. On that front, the Modi govt is on a destructive path.

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) February 1, 2022

Need Concrete Action at High Speed and on Large Scale to Combat Climate Change: PM Modi

Modi also said sustainable lifestyles and guiding philosophy of ‘back to basics’ must be important pillars of the economic strategy for the post-COVID era.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday pitched for concrete action at a “high speed” and on a large scale to combat climate change, and asserted that India was doing its part to deal with the challenge.

Addressing a US-hosted virtual summit of 40 global leaders, Modi also said sustainable lifestyles and guiding philosophy of “back to basics” must be important pillars of the economic strategy for the post-COVID era.

The prime minister said he and President Biden are launching the ‘India-US climate and clean energy Agenda 2030 partnership’.

“Together, we will help mobilise investments, demonstrate clean technologies, and enable green collaborations,” he said at the summit.

Modi said India has taken “many bold steps” on clean energy, energy efficiency, afforestation and bio-diversity despite its development challenges.

Also read: Watch | ‘We Have Technology to Solve Climate Crisis, Problem Is of Political Willpower’

“For humanity to combat climate change, concrete action is needed. We need such action at a high speed, on a large scale, and with a global scope. We, in India, are doing our part,” the prime minister said.

“As a climate-responsible developing country, India welcomes partners to create templates of sustainable development in India. These can also help other developing countries, who need affordable access to green finance and clean technologies,” he said.

Modi said humanity is battling a global pandemic right now and the summit is a timely reminder that the grave threat of climate Change has not disappeared.

The prime minister also thanked President Biden for hosting the summit.

Why Renewable Energy Must Play a Greater Role in COVID-19 Economic Recovery

Data shows across 17 major economies, including India, out of the $11.8 trillion global fiscal stimulus packages, around 30% will flow into sectors that have negative impacts on the environment.

As the world grapples with the tragic health and economic consequences of COVID-19, governments have responded with a range of massive fiscal interventions. But while there is much talk of a ‘green recovery’, many governments are in fact prioritising environmentally unfriendly ‘brown’ stimulus measures.

The Indian government needs to build in green recovery-oriented measures to deal with the current crisis and more importantly to prevent the climate crisis from impacting people’s health and livelihoods.

As per the International Monetary Fund (IMF) fiscal monitor database, discretionary stimulus spending as a share of GDP varies across different countries. The US leads the pack with 12.3% of GDP, followed by Japan and Germany with shares of 11.3% and 9.4%, respectively. India has a significantly lower share, amounting to 1.2% of GDP.

Green stimulus

With such large-scale government investment, there is a need to focus spending on plans that cut greenhouse gas emissions as well as boost the economy. The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the call for stronger climate action to prevent the next human crisis.

So, how much of the fiscal stimulus is going towards a green recovery? According to the Rhodium Group’s analysis of the IMF data, 20.2% of the European Union’s stimulus is focused on green, climate-related priorities, compared to only 1.1% of the US stimulus. India is spending just 2.4% of its stimulus on green energy.

Data by Vivid Economics reveals that across 17 major economies, out of the $11.8 trillion global fiscal stimulus packages, around 30% (amounting to $3.5 trillion) will flow into sectors that have intensive impacts on the environment – whether on climate change, biodiversity or local pollution.

Are countries doing enough to accelerate clean energy transitions? A glance at Vivid Economics’ Green Stimulus Index, which assesses the environmental orientation of stimulus funding in various countries, reveals recovery spending will have a net negative environmental impact in most of the countries. This is driven by the underlying policies supporting different fuels and energy types in the pre-COVID world.

As per the energy policy tracker by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and other organisations, as of October 28, G20 countries had committed at least $403 billion to supporting different energy types through new or amended policies, of which $216 billion is supporting fossil fuel energy compared to $146 billion supporting clean energy.

Within clean energy, $51 billion are committed for ‘unconditional’ clean investments. The remaining $94 billion can support clean energy transition, but it is ‘conditional’ upon sustainable implementation. France and the UK are the leading providers of ‘unconditional’ support for clean energy, while the US and Germany are the top providers of ‘conditional’ support.

According to the tracker, India has committed at least $23.3 billion to supporting different energy types, with $9.86 billion towards supporting fossil fuel energy ($2.12 billion to oil and gas and $7.74 billion to coal). Further, $12.1 billion support is provided to electricity distribution companies for making payments owed to generators. The only identified and quantified support for clean energy is $1.3 billion, meagre in comparison to the funds allocated to fossil energy, which is for the supply of nine hours of free solar power to farmers by the Andhra Pradesh state government.

The disparity in support between fossil and clean energy is particularly jarring given that renewables continue to outperform fossil fuels on a cost basis – historically low renewable energy tariffs have been discovered in auctions in 2020, and global capital markets are rapidly moving away from fossil fuels, as their share prices hit new decade lows.

If India is going to back energy production, why invest in technology that is not only polluting but also less competitive?

Also read: Is India’s First Round-the-Clock Renewable Energy Contract Really What It Claims to Be?

Kick-starting green recoveries

Much of the global stimulus is going to industries and energy types with negative environmental impacts. Instead of taking the opportunity to shift to clean energy, most countries are focusing COVID-19 economic recovery measures on sectors that contribute to environmental degradation.

Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), has urged countries to put clean energy at the heart of stimulus plans. Support measures, while protecting people and helping industries to cope with the coronavirus crisis, must also combine environmental measures, he has said.

And some countries are stepping up by implementing packages in which measures designed to support a green recovery make up a large proportion of their overall fiscal stimulus.

Germany’s stimulus – which Chancellor Angela Merkel described as a “package for the future” – in June 2020 amounting to $45 billion was the first to provide substantial support to green measures. These included funding for green infrastructure and research and development (R&D), particularly in the energy and transport sectors, as well as some support for green agriculture and industry.

The ‘Next Generation EU’ recovery package amounting to $830 billion is the most environmentally friendly stimulus package to date. Around 30% of this fund will be directed towards green initiatives such as reducing dependence on fossil fuels, enhancing energy efficiency and investing in preserving and restoring natural capital. In addition, all recovery loans and grants to member states will be attached to “do no harm” environmental safeguards.

The UK’s stimulus is a mixed bag with substantial support for green initiatives but also relaxing some environmental regulations and providing support to polluters. The UK government has provided support to wind energy and $3.8 billion for energy efficiency improvements. In addition, there are small measures to support innovative R&D and contributions to the Green Jobs Challenge Fund.

France is the most successful at attaching green conditions to bailouts, introducing two major environmental conditions: the reduction of emissions by 50% and a minimum standard of 2% renewable fuel by 2030. The minister of transport recently stated that €2 billion of France’s €100 billion stimulus package will be blocked for clean cars, focused on electric and hybrid vehicles.

In July 2020, South Korea announced its ‘Green New Deal’ amounting to $130 billion, which will support a variety of green projects and jobs over the next five years. It will include initiatives like renewable energy, electric and hydrogen vehicles, and energy efficiency in buildings.

Also read: As Lockdown Hits India’s Renewables Target, How Will Government Bounce Back?

Lessons for India

To tackle the economic slowdown and loss of jobs, the government is emphasising the need for India to become a self-reliant economy (Atmanirbhar Bharat). In order to meet its twin objectives of fueling economic growth and promoting domestic manufacturing, the government provides fiscal stimulus to clean energy including renewable energy, storage technologies and electric vehicles.

Other countries’ stimulus packages show that there are two paths to follow, and the future lies on the one less well travelled – that is, accelerating investments in clean energy. With this, the government can increase its revenue by expanding the manufacturing base for clean energy alternatives that will be in increasing demand internationally. This will also provide jobs growth in a sector that is more environmentally friendly and will not negatively impact the health of the people working in these areas.

At the same time, the government needs to accelerate the phasing out of inefficient older coal plants. Further, government needs to adhere to the 2022 timeline for adoption of environmental norms by the thermal power plants as they are one of the biggest contributors to local air pollution. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres also emphasised that India needs to stop supporting fossil fuels and instead reap the benefits of renewable power.

India should kick-start a truly green future by embarking upon a green-oriented recovery, as Germany and France have done. In the coming months, the government is expected to announce recovery packages – a ‘green’ stimulus should be front and centre.

Vibhuti Garg is an energy economist at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). She can be reached at vgarg@ieefa.org. Christopher Beaton is lead, sustainable energy consumption at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). He can be reached at cbeaton@iisd.org.

India’s U-Turn on ‘Clean’ Energy Is a Bad Move

The Narendra Modi government has used the pandemic to push for cheap and dirty coal power even if it kills.

At the start of 2020, the Central government made an important set of changes to India’s coal sector through an ordinance and then amendments to the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015. Through these, the government has expanded opportunities for privatised, commercial mining. Coal blocks can now be owned by private entities without any prior coal mining experience and any “specified end-use.”

These big shifts have raised many questions about what the government hopes to achieve by commercialising coal in this era of intense competition from renewables in the electricity sector, the rising NPAs of thermal power plants (TPPs) and a massive global withdrawal from fossil fuel for climate and environmental reasons.

In March 2020, India went into an economic lockdown to manage the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the economy further shrunk and challenged by effects such as a fall in power demand, the government’s continued coal sector “reforms” have earned criticism even from the private sector. Who would be crazy enough to invest in coal now, was everyone’s question. In a shocking follow-up, the government has dangled a potentially dangerous carrot to investors in India’s coal blocks. It has done away with the regulation requiring power plants to use “washed” coal, by terming it an unnecessary cost on coal users.

The “washing” requirement was introduced in 1997, and promised the use of cleaner coal in power production. It was India’s only legitimate justification to extend the life of coal as a development fuel despite the climate crisis. Now, with this U-turn that allows private entities to dig out and burn low-grade coal to produce electricity, the Indian government stands exposed not only as an unreliable climate saviour but one that sacrifices the rights and safety of all its citizens to protect the interests of private coal mining and power generation.

The governance failure of coal washeries

Indian coal is known to contain 30-50% ash, meaning that for every two units of coal burned, one unit of ash could be produced. So, a manufacturing or power producing unit has to burn more coal and in turn generate not only ash but also noxious gases, particulate matter and carbon emissions.

Coal washeries are units that reduce the ash content in coal through a mix of segregation, blending and washing techniques. These technologies are meant to allow the conservation and optimal use of coal reserves by improving the quality and efficiency of low grade, high ash Indian coal. Washery units set up in different locations were also meant to make improved coal available across manufacturing and industrial areas and thus reduce the reliance on long distance transportation of different grades of coal to units that needed them. Most importantly, washed coal would also provide high grade “coking” coal that is essential for the steel sector.

Also read: How Malleable Laws, Pliant Panels Helped OIL Secure Clearance to Drill in Biodiverse Area

Despite the known importance of coal washing to our coal dependent economy, this sector made up of medium and small-scale units (MSMEs) has mostly been a governance failure. After the nationalisation of coal in 1972-73, India’s washing capacity fell out of step with the massive increase in coal mining and the consequent exhaustion of our better coal reserves.

In the 1993 amendments to the Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Act, 1973, which first legalised the privatisation of coal blocks in India, private players showing “coal washing” as end use were also given captive coal blocks. Although the legal amendments invited private actors to invest in coal washeries, it generated much less interest than expected. According to the 2017 statistics, India has a total of 60 washeries with a capacity of only 185 MT. Of these, 15 are operated by Coal India Limited, India’s largest coal mining PSU, 19 are private coking coal washeries for use by steel industries and 38 are non-coking coal washeries run by private players like Aryan, Adani and Jindal.

The tendering processes followed by CIL for washeries moved at a snail’s pace. PSU contractors and private washeries have complained of the prohibitive costs of obtaining land and environment and forest approvals. Coal price regulation did not incentivise coal washing. The sector has suffered from lack of efficient linkages in the coal supply chain and there has been no R&D that is suited to our coal and industrial needs. This is specially the case with coking coal production and so India has been importing almost all the coking coal needed for its steel industry. Due to the lack of washeries, CIL produced coal cannot be used where needed. The shortages and erratic supply of washed coal to the power sector has resulted in India importing for its TPPs also at great cost to the exchequer.

But beyond all these technical issues is the political economy of coal. The story of the coal washeries drags us back to the mismanagement of the coal sector that lay beyond what the Supreme Court observed and addressed in the historic coal scam case in 2014. The mismatch between the regulation of coal blocks by the Congress government and growth in the coal consuming sectors created a huge unmet demand for coal. The coal washeries soon became a route to divert good coal into these grey markets as coal rejects. Chandasi near Varanasi is one such market active from the days when CIL had monopoly rights to mine coal. Various grades of coal which were legally or illegally mined, diverted or stolen, would land up here. As noted by journalist Rajshekhar, this was the “market that stepped in to correct a state failure”

India’s environment ministry laid out notifications mandating the use of low-ash producing coal in TPPs in urban, critically polluted, and ecologically sensitive areas and in power plants beyond 1000 km of coal mines (G.S.R. 560(E), 19.9.1997 and G.S.R. 378(E), 30.5.1998); as well as the safe disposal of ash produced (S.O. 763 (E) dated 14.9.1999). In January 2014, at the peak of the coal scam, the UPA introduced another notification stating that only coal with less than 34 % ash content should be used in all TPPs above 100 MW beyond 500 km of coal mine or if they are in urban areas, ESAs and critically polluted areas.

Experts say this was in line with India’s committed position on climate change; that is to control carbon emissions from domestic coal use without necessarily reducing coal consumption. This regulation was also written into India’s 2015 INDCs as “Coal beneficiation has been made mandatory.” These notifications, however, have mostly remained unimplemented given the larger unaddressed problems in the coal sector. The governance failure of washeries has caused the wasteful use of India’s coal reserves, loss of foreign exchange and huge environmental and social impacts.

A U-turn from clean coal

Having come to power criticising the UPA’s system of coal block allocations, the Modi government recognised that the coal sector needed to be straightened up. The Central Bureau of Investigation continued to track companies named in the coal scam and in some instances found coal miners (also this) allegedly diverting raw coal in the name of washeries.

In June 2016, the coal ministry had a detailed presentation and meeting to decide on a way to regulate coal rejects or middling. The meeting’s objectives were narrowed down to articulate a clear policy on how “the quantity of washery rejects generated by a washery” should be monitored. The minutes of the meeting state that “apprehensions” were voiced during the meeting that bidders who get coal blocks under a new system of coal auctions “might sell coal under garb of washery rejects.” The government was concerned that leakages would defeat the purpose of making coal accessible to power producers below the market price to keep coal power cheap.

At the same time, more initiatives were devised for the washeries sector. Media reports state that in 2017, Coal India’s Vision 2030 argued for the need to increase coal washing capacity through Public Private Partnerships. To bring them online, environment approvals for washeries were made easier through generalised Terms Of Reference for EIAs in 2018. Between December 2019 and January 2020, at least six coal washeries were listed for environmental approvals for capacity enhancement, validity extensions and new projects. Pollution Control Boards (PCB) allow washeries to function even though their operations are highly polluting and they guzzle water.

Also read: The Govt is Trying to Make it Easier for Industries to Avoid Environmental Accountability

As recently as January 2020, the NITI Aayog stated in a report that all new coal plants need to use super critical technology and washed coal. But after all this acknowledgement of the importance of coal washeries, the government surprisingly issued new notification in May 2020 without seeking any public inputs. On May 21, the environment ministry undid the January 2014 notification that required TPPs to use of coal that has less than 34% ash content.

The ministry’s new regulation allows TPPs to now use low-grade Indian coal that produces more fly ash. The regulation, however, states that TPPs will have to comply with emission norms, fly ash utilisation norms and use transportation with safeguards or means that are less polluting. This sudden, unplanned environmental policy on coal threatens all the planned and in-process investments in washeries like CIL’s plans for expansion.

The ministry’s justification for allowing the use of high-ash coal are two-fold. The economic debacle caused by the COVID lockdown is its first pretext. In its interest to generate new private investments in coal, the government would like to liberate the coal mining and thermal power sectors from the costs of washing and transporting washed coal. But experts state that the cost of washed coal does not add even 10% to the cost of electricity.

The ministry also states that coal washeries cause pollution. However, this problem is not unique to washeries alone and applies to the entire supply chain that supports India’s economy. In the latest notification, the government makes coal washeries the only culprit of the problems that plague coal use and shifts the burden of managing pollution from the use of coal to TPPs.

The new notification states “(i) The extent of ash content in mined coal remains the same. With washeries, the ash content gets divided at two places (washeries and the power plant), whereas if unwashed coal is used in power plant, the ash content is handled at only one place viz. the power plant”. According to the government, TPPs are now well equipped to manage fly ash and emission norms through better technology. However, these claims that pollution even from low grade coal use can be managed by making it the responsibility of TPPs is not tenable. According to IEA’s 2020 report, TPPs with their stressed finances, low water and fuel supply, cannot bear even the existing environmental costs.

Impact of dirty coal

The government’s explanations undermine the huge environmental challenge of coal use in India. Private TPPs are particularly hard to regulate because of their contradictory objectives of provisioning of electricity, a politically sensitive subject, and making profits. The new notification pushes the burden of pollution reduction to TPPs when they have shown no intention to comply with existing environmental laws so far. Between the government’s permissiveness on coal use and TPPs impunity to flout pollution norms, coal washeries were the only bridge to address coal efficiency and air, land and water pollution by coal power.

Fly ash is the worst form of waste generated by dirty coal in TPPs. It is produced and collected in towering, open landfills called ash ponds. The breaching of these landfills lead to large scale disasters. They inundate large areas with toxic materials that can render farmlands and water bodies polluted on a large scale. Besides the creation of poisonous landfills in the ground, the burning of poor quality coal increases carbon emissions and air pollution, a danger to public health. There is enough evidence to show that fly ash management by TPPs has failed and the environment ministry has dragged its feet on implementing the emission standards. Despite these large-scale violations of environmental laws by TPPs, there are few and piece-meal responses from judicial agencies to these issues that affect millions of people and their environments in India’s coal bearing states.

Also read: Why a Plastic Plant Was Deemed ‘Essential’ During Lockdown, and Other Questions on Vizag Gas Leak

The states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha that have large agglomerations of coal mines and power plants will become more unliveable by the burning of bad coal. While more deaths and disease by air pollution are a distinct possibility, the spread of unmanaged fly ash will turn these rice growing regions into wastelands.

The land provided to TPPs through acquisition, sale or lease includes the space needed to construct fly ash ponds. Over the years the lands approved for TPPs have reduced due to land conflicts and the fly ash management measures put down on paper. As a result, ash will continue to be indiscriminately dumped.

These coal and pollution management policies that fail by design is an attack on the right to food, work and life of people in the coal regions. India’s entire coal network is ultimately set up to meet the expectations of a growing consumeristic society addicted to cheap power. It was a welcome surprise to hear a chief minister of a mining dependent state finally speak up against a national extractive economy that keeps mineral rich states poor with very low and often unpaid royalties.

Conclusion

While economic reforms at this crucial time should have focused on reducing coal and extractive minerals in the power sector and in the economy altogether, the government has shown that it continues to support mining and coal use. This points to the salience of the extractive industry in India’s political economy.

The BJP rode into power at the Centre on the back of the coalgate scam, but since then its has been able to do little to govern the coal sector better. While its big declarations on renewables received accolades from the international climate community, domestically the government’s support for coal continues despite all the socio-economic and environmental rationale against it. The much hyped coal auctions of 50 new coal blocks are due “soon”.

Indians are resigned to the use of coal for some more years because it is enmeshed in the country’s political economy of development. But in this context, the new notification’s permission to use low grade coal in power generation is dangerous and discriminatory. By denying – and refusing to remedy – the governance problems of coal use and allowing rogue coal power plants to bypass washeries, the environment ministry has put on the line the lives of the poorest people residing in the country’s coal enclaves.

Kanchi Kohli and Manju Menon are with the Centre for Policy Research.

Climate Change: An Unstoppable Movement Takes Hold

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres on global efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.

On the eve of the September UN Climate Action Summit, young women and men around the world mobilised by the millions and told global leaders: “You are failing us”.

They are right.

Global emissions are increasing. Temperatures are rising. The consequences for oceans, forests, weather patterns, biodiversity, food production, water, jobs and, ultimately, lives, are already dire – and set to get much worse.

The science is undeniable. But in many places, people don’t need a chart or graph to understand the climate crisis. They can simply look out the window.

Climate chaos is playing out in real-time from California to the Caribbean, and from Africa to the Arctic and beyond. Those who contributed least to the problem are suffering the most.

I have seen it with my own eyes from cyclone-battered Mozambique to the hurricane-devastated Bahamas to the rising seas of the South Pacific.

I called the Climate Action Summit to serve as a springboard to set us on the right path ahead of crucial 2020 deadlines established by the Paris Agreement on climate change. And many leaders – from many countries and sectors – stepped up.

A broad coalition – not just governments and youth, but businesses, cities, investors and civil society – came together to move in the direction our world so desperately needs to avert climate catastrophe.

Also Read: ‘How Dare You’: Greta Thunberg Denounces World Leaders At UN Climate Summit

More than seventy countries committed to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, even if major emitters have not yet done so. More than 100 cities did the same, including several of the world’s largest.

At least seventy countries announced their intention to boost their national plans under the Paris agreement by 2020.

Small Island States together committed to achieve carbon neutrality and to move to 100% renewable energy by 2030.

Countries from Pakistan to Guatemala, Colombia to Nigeria, New Zealand to Barbados vowed to plant more than 11 billion trees.

More than 100 leaders in the private sector committed to accelerating their move into the green economy.

A group of the world’s largest asset-owners – responsible for directing more than $2 trillion – pledged to move to carbon-neutral investment portfolios by 2050.

This is in addition to a recent call by asset managers representing nearly half the world’s invested capital – some $34 trillion – for global leaders to put a meaningful price on carbon and phase out fossil fuel subsidies and thermal coal power worldwide.

Global leaders should put a meaningful price on carbon and phase out fossil fuel subsidies and thermal coal power worldwide. Photo: Reuters

The International Development Finance Club pledged to mobilise $1 trillion in clean energy funding by 2025 in 20 least developed countries.

One-third of the global banking sector signed up to align their businesses with the Paris agreement objectives and Sustainable Development Goals.

The Summit also showcased ways in which cities and global industries like shipping can achieve major reductions in emissions. Initiatives to protect forests and safeguard water supplies were also highlighted.

These steps are all important – but they are not sufficient.

From the beginning, the Summit was designed to jolt the world and accelerate action on a wider scale. It also served as a global stage for hard truths and to shine a light on those who are leading and those who are not. Deniers or major emitters have nowhere to hide.

I will continue to encourage them to do much more at home and drive green economic solutions around the world.

Our planet needs action on a truly planetary scale. That cannot be achieved overnight, and it cannot happen without the full engagement of those contributing most to the crisis.

If our world is to avoid the climate cliff, far more is needed to heed the call of science and cut greenhouse emissions by 45% by 2030; reach carbon neutrality by 2050; and limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century. That’s how we can secure the future of our world.

Too many countries still seem to be addicted to coal – even though cheaper, greener options are available already. We need much more progress on carbon pricing, ensuring no new coal plants by 2020, and ending trillions of dollars in giveaways of hard-earned taxpayers’ money to a dying fossil fuel industry to boost hurricanes, spread tropical diseases, and heighten conflict.

Also Read: UN Secretary General Urges Public Pressure to Address the Climate ‘Emergency’

At the same time, developed countries must fulfill their commitment to provide $100 billion a year from public and private sources by 2020 for mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.

And I will make sure that the commitments that countries, the private sector and local authorities have made are accounted for – starting in December at the UN Climate conference in Santiago, Chile. The UN is united in support of realizing these initiatives.

Climate change is the defining issue of our time.

Science tells us that on our current path, we face at least 3 degrees Celsius of global heating by the end of the century. I will not be there, but my granddaughters will.

I refuse to be an accomplice in the destruction of their one and only home.

Young people, the UN – and a growing number of leaders from business, finance, government, and civil society – in short, many of us – are mobilising and acting.

But we need many others to take climate action if we are to succeed.

We have a long way to go. But the movement has begun.

António Guterres is secretary-general of the United Nations.

This article appears as part of The Wire‘s partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 300 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.

India’s Growing Solar Power Programme Could Leave Behind a Trail of Waste

India has an ambitious solar power programme but no proper policy or mechanism to address the waste from solar panels.

Solar power may promise a bright future for India’s energy requirements, but behind the sheen is a growing mountain of waste. While the national government is pushing an ambitious solar power programme for India, it has, so far, failed to put in a mechanism to address the problem of waste, including environmentally hazardous materials, from solar photovoltaic panels that can be hazardous to the environment.

A recent report by renewable energy consulting firm Bridge to India (BTI) said that the solar photovoltaic (PV) panels waste volume in India is estimated to grow to 200,000 tonnes by 2030 and around 1.8 million tonnes by 2050 – almost 200 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower.

India’s current solar power target is 100,000 megawatts (100 gigawatts) by 2022, raised from 20,000 MW in June 2015 by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. This 100-gigawatt target includes 40 GW rooftop and 60 GW through large and medium grid-connected solar power projects and India has advanced towards this target with the installed solar power capacity increasing from 2,631.93 MW in March 2014 to 28,180.71 MW in March 2019.

Also read: Trickle of States Around the World Producing All Power From Renewable Sources

However, this also means the amount of solar panel waste has increased during this time, with cases of early retirement of the panels. The lifetime of each PV panel is usually 20-25 years. Panels may be discarded earlier because of site accidents and poor quality.

As per MNRE, it is estimated that for each MW of solar power, 75 MT (metric tonne) of PV modules are needed.

BTI’s report explains that a solar photovoltaic panel is essentially made up of glass, metal, silicon and polymer fractions. While glass and aluminium, together constituting around 80 percent of the total weight, are non-hazardous, a few other materials used in the panel, like polymers, lead and cadmium compounds, are potentially environmentally hazardous.

India has an ambitious solar power programme but has no policy to deal with the photovoltaic panel waste from the sector. Credit: Mayank Aggarwal/Mongabay India.

The report emphasised that if disposed off in an uncontrolled way, potential leaching of those hazardous materials at end-of-life can have negative environmental and health impacts.

“Leaching of lead has a huge environmental impact—loss in biodiversity, decreased growth and reproductive rates in plants and animals, and several other health hazards—adverse impact on kidney function, nervous, immune, reproductive and cardiovascular systems. Cadmium is a carcinogen with high toxicity as well as high accumulation potential in humans,” said the report.

It also stressed that the polymer component used in solar modules is difficult to recycle and can only be incinerated which again poses “a significant health and environmental risk due to the formation of highly corrosive gases at the incineration stage.”

“If landfilled inappropriately, waste and waste constituents can find ways into soil and water, resulting in a potentially damaging impact on the ecosystem,” it added.

Experts have been emphasising that while solar installations are growing at a robust rate, little attention has been paid to module recycling in India.

India has no policy to deal with solar panel waste as of now

Surbhi Singhvi of BTI, who is one of the authors of the report, told Mongabay-India that “right now there is no policy to deal with the waste from the solar sector in India.”

“Solar waste just finds a mention in one place – the tender documents (of solar projects) – wherein it is said that the solar power developers are responsible to dispose the waste in line with the electronic waste rules. But the e-waste rules make no mention of the solar panel waste. So, it is no one’s responsibility,” Singhvi explained.

“The problem is not years away. It is right here right now. Developers have waste lying with them right now and this waste is mainly solar panels that get damaged in transportation or solar panels that were of poor quality that had to be replaced or damaged due to other reasons. This early life retirement of modules needs to be taken care of,” she said.

A senior official of Indian government ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE), while wishing anonymity, admitted that the problem of waste from solar industry is on their radar now. MNRE is spearheading the renewable energy programme in India.

Also read: Karnataka’s Days in the Sun: The Paradox of Expanding Solar Parks

“There is no national policy addressing this issue as of now. But we are working on it. Soon there may be a national regulation to tackle this problem,” said the official while adding that the problem of waste from solar modules also provides an economic opportunity to recover and recycle.

Arun K. Tripathi, who is director general of the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE), said that being one of the apex institutions in the field of solar energy it is their moral responsibility to set the right example in solar waste recycling and its safe disposal.

“I believe that an effective mechanism for solar waste disposal can be put in place if the entire industry collectively works towards it and cooperates with each other,” wrote Tripathi, in his foreword for the BTI report adding that hoped the nation takes timely action on the matter rather than wait for the problem to become too big to handle.

Studies reveal that India in the next few years itself the country could face a huge amount of waste from the solar sector. Credit: Citizenmj/Wikimedia Commons.

Ruchin Gupta, who is a director in MNRE, said that “in the absence of adequate standards, market protocols, and operational infrastructure, the PV waste may be inappropriately landfilled or incinerated to the detriment of human health and environment.”

“The use of potentially hazardous materials necessitates putting in place an appropriate mechanism to ensure safe disposal of solar modules,” he said in the BTI report.

Is recycling a viable option right now?

Though all stakeholders recommend proper recycling for managing solar power waste, the report said that the reality is that the solar PV waste recycling is still at a nascent stage globally, both in terms of technical standards and physical infrastructure.

“The waste is usually sent to laminated glass and metal recyclers that recover 70-80 percent of the material by weight. Advanced recycling technologies can potentially push this up to 92 percent. Most materials other than glass, aluminium, and copper are usually not recovered and must be incinerated or landfilled. Unfortunately, PV module recycling is still not commercially viable,” the report said.

“There are clear environmental and commercial benefits of properly disposing of solar waste. So, if you look at solar modules there is some amount of silver. While it is very small by weight, it is quite big in terms of commercial value. Then there is solar-grade silicon – which is about 40 percent by value. Because of the presence of such high-value materials, there are substantial commercial gains to be made. But the problem is that in India we don’t have the requisite recycling facilities that can recover these materials. Right now we are not even able to separate glass from the metal frame, leave alone taking out silver or silicon from the modules,” report author Singhvi said.

She also stressed that for recycling to make commercial sense there need to be facilities all around India otherwise huge transportation cost would be involved – which is not viable.

Also read: Policy Confusion, Cost Issues Cast a Shadow on India’s National Solar Mission Target

The total estimated cost including transportation can vary between $400-600 (approximately Rs. Rs 28,000-42,000) per tonne, which is far above the value of the recovered material.

Singhvi informed that the European Union (EU) has already taken a lead in addressing the problem with a comprehensive plan for allocating liability, setting recovery and recycling targets, treatment requirements, and consumer awareness.

“If right practices are followed, there is a clear commercial and environmental gain. The right practices include using water efficiently in the cleaning of panels and proper recycling of solar panel waste,” she added.

The glass used in solar panels is also a cause of worry

Recently, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) was hearing a case regarding the use of “antimony-containing glasses in solar photovoltaic panels and the possible environmental risks or consequences at the end of life of such solar panels.” Solar panels contain a substance called antimony, used to improve stability of the solar performance of the glass upon exposure to ultraviolet radiation or sunlight, which would leach from the glass when the waste panels were exposed to wet conditions.

Realising that there is no policy or rules on management of antimony-containing glass used in solar panels, the NGT in an order in February 2019 had directed the environment ministry to complete the exercise of preparing and declaring a policy or rules for management of antimony-containing solar glass panels within three weeks after the receipt of the blueprint from the MNRE. In March 2019, the MNRE had made public a draft of the blueprint to deal with antimony-containing solar panels.

The draft noted that solar panels with antimony-containing glass (SPACG) may be considered as a ‘low effect’ waste that needs to be regulated for environmentally safe handling, recycling or disposal.

Antimony is a silvery-white metal that is found in the earth’s crust. It is a type of heavy metal. Commercially, the most used compound of antimony is antimony trioxide (ATO), which is a white powder and slightly soluble in water, and the other compound is potassium antimony tartrate, which was used as an emetic (a medicine that induces nausea and vomiting) during the Middle Ages.

The MNRE draft blueprint noted that antimony in the form of potassium antimony tartrate is a toxic compound but the textured solar glasses used in solar PV modules contain antimony in the form of antimony trioxide, which is considered by the World Health Organization to have very low toxicity, due to its low solubility in water and poor bioavailability. It also noted that that toxicological effects of antimony that may release from solar panel glass, even if it exceeds the specified WHO norms, will be less.

The MNRE’s draft blueprint also noted that the recycling facilities for the solar panels with antimony-containing glass at the end of life is not yet available in the country. The draft is expected to be finalised soon after which environment ministry is expected to come out with a policy on it.

“Such facilities may be created by industry once the adequate quantity of PV waste is available for recycling and also a policy framework that stipulates the responsibility to the generator or producer for sending the waste for recycling,” the draft added.

It also suggested that considering the leaching potential of antimony, the end-of-life solar panels may be treated as ‘low effect waste’ and handled as per the provisions under Hazardous and Other Wastes Management Rules, 2016.

The central government is expected to come out with a policy for the management of waste from solar PV panels. Credit: Energiaastatcon/Wikimedia Commons

On this, BTI’s Surbhi Singhvi said that “most of the environmentally hazardous materials used in modules lie outside of the glass.”

“For example, lead is used in modules which is extremely hazardous and dangerous to the environment. Then there are various polymers that cannot be recycled. You can only incinerate them and when that is done HFCs are emitted which again pollutes the air. However, the antimony case represents the first step towards ensuring appropriate disposal of solar waste,” she said.

Proper recycling is important to justify the ‘green energy’ tag

Experts believe that there is no doubt regarding the benefits of solar power but they feel that to justify the ‘green energy’ tag, the solar sector needs to adopt a proper process to address critical issues like end-of-life recycling.

Satish Sinha, who is an associate director with Toxics Link, said that “no thought has been given to the expected waste from the solar sector.”

“In about 15-20 years from now, this waste could pose a serious threat on account of large volumes and the absence of an ecosystem comprising of policy framework and technology to manage this waste. The waste arisings are not only solar panels but also connectors, cables, storage devices etc. making it extremely complex to handle. It has always been the case that new materials or products are introduced in the market with little or no thought to its end of life management, finally passing the burden to society. Electronic waste is a case wherein the country pushed ahead with digitisation and connectivity but did not plan for the end of life management of waste and is now struggling to find a meaningful solution,” he said.

On a query regarding the environmental impact of the manufacturing process, he explained that, at present, India is not a major manufacturer of solar panels since most of it is manufactured abroad and is primarily only assembled in India.

This article was originally published on Mongabay.