Green Hydrogen Imperative To Move Away From Fossil Fuels: Amitabh Kant
At the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow last November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid out India’s ambitious climate pledges which included the net-zero target by the year 2070 and increasing its installed renewable generation capacity to 500 GW by the year 2030. However, with nearly 70 per cent of dependence on coal for its energy requirements, the western world blames India for not doing more to fight the climate emergency. This was evident on the last day of the Summit as well when India was criticised by the West for giving a call for “phase-out of coal power” instead of “phase-down of coal power.”
NITI Aayog CEO, Amitabh Kant on Tuesday reiterated that India does have ambitious climate targets but at the same time highlighted that the western world took 40 to 71 years to move from peaking to net zero. “India is the only country in the world which has met its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) out of all the G20 countries. We believe in short term goals; the developed world has been changing the goal post with every climate change summit. Our goal is to pin down these countries on short terms goals rather than just net-zero,” he said.
Kant while speaking at an industry forum emphasized solar energy and other renewable sources of energy to reduce India’s dependence on fossil fuels. With Prime Minister Modi announcing the National Hydrogen Mission, Kant said that to reduce our imports of fossil fuels we have to use solar energy to crack water and create green hydrogen.
He also stressed on reducing the dependence on coal for certain industries. “Electricity through solar is just 20 per cent of the energy but rest of it lies in our refineries, steel industries, fertlisers etc. which are dependent on coal. Therefore, green hydrogen is imperative to move away from fossil fuels,” he said.
He stated that India is committed in its fight against climate change but to achieve the targets in a very short period, we will need a quantum leap in technology. This technological jump, according to Kant, will come from the private sector. “If the private sector has to grow in value, they will have to go digital and green. Without going green Indian companies will lose out enormously and that’s the real challenge for the corporate leadership,” Kant added.
