News Highlights:
India opposed the G7 nations’ plan of persuading India to start negotiations on a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JET-P).
Key Takeaway:
Just Energy Transition Partnership (JET-P) is emerging as the critical mechanism for multilateral financing by developed countries to support an energy transition in developing countries.
Just Energy Transition Partnership strategy:
- About:
- JETP is an initiative of the rich nations to accelerate the phasing out of coal and reduce emissions.
- The JETP initiative is modelled for South Africa to support South Africa’s decarbonisation efforts.
- It aims to reduce emissions in the energy sector and accelerate the coal phase-out process.
- JETP makes various funding options available for this purpose in identified developing countries.
- Commenced:
- The JETP was launched at the COP26 in Glasgow with the support of the United Kingdom (UK), the United States (US), France, Germany, and the European Union (EU).
- Following that, G7 announced a similar partnership in India, Indonesia, Senegal, and Vietnam.
- Tested Model:
- The JETP model is expected to be on the lines of the JETP programme already launched with South Africa at the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26) last year.
- The countries announced a shared long-term ambition to support South Africa’s decarbonisation efforts to help meet its emission reduction targets in its latest Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC).
- The G7, which includes France, Germany, the UK, the US and the EU, proposed financing of $8.5 billion for South Africa through various instruments such as grants, concessional loans and investments, and risk-sharing instruments, including involving the private sector.
- Significance:
- This is significant because this approach considers each partner’s societal and economic development and will not try to force-feed partners a standard solution.
- That partnership, with particular emphasis on “just” and “transition”, is about helping fund South Africa’s decarbonisation by replacing coal usage with clean energy.
- At its core, the idea is to assist green transitions by making finance available from developed countries, multilateral institutions and groups of green investors.
- Issues:
- Transitions affect jobs dependent on fossil fuels in the near future and disrupt future energy access.
- Reduce the state’s ability to spend on welfare programmes and worsen existing economic disparities between coal and other regions.
- Without paying enough attention to the national context, developed countries’ emphasis on the phase-down of coal ignores the significant distinction between industrialised and emerging economies regarding the energy transition.
Climate Deal Offered To India
- Climate Deal:
- The US and Germany have proposed a G-7 partnership with India to support and fund the makeover of its energy mix from fossil fuels to carbon-neutral sources.
- The deal constitutes reducing the number of coal-burning power plants under development and gradually closing coal mines.
- India initiatives:
- According to India’s updated nationally determined contributions (NDCs), it stands committed to reducing the emission intensity of its GDP by 45 per cent by 2030 from the 2005 level and achieving about 50 per cent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030.
- India has signalled a commitment to clean energy with ambitious targets like 500GW of nonÂfossil, including 450 GW renewable energy (RE) capacity addition and 43% RE purchase obligation by 2030.
- The Union Ministry of Power has already opposed the G7 nations’ plan of persuading India to start negotiations on a Just Energy Transition Partnership.
Pic Courtesy: Freepik
Content Source: The Hindu