The forthcoming visit of President Barack Obama to India has kicked off speculations on the issues he would take up with Prime Minister Modi, especially on climate change. The interest is all the more since Obama’s visit to China last November was marked by the announcement by the two sides of “aspirational” targets to reduce their global warming gas emissions with timeframes thrown in for effect.

This agreement has caught the fancy of many, generating speculation that India could also be expected to announce a “peaking” year during Obama’s visit.

Peaking issues But such surmises overlook an important development that took place since last November. The Lima Conference in December brought about a qualitative change in the global discourse on combating climate change. The Lima text gives considerable latitude to all countries in setting their targets in mitigation and adaptation efforts in the hope that they would commit themselves to a higher level of performance than what a business-as-usual strategy would dictate. But whatever a country accepts as its targets would be expected to be honoured under an internationally agreed instrument.

India has already announced a target of 20-25 per cent reduction in the greenhouse gas emission intensity of its growth to be achieved by 2020. Its absolute emissions would, however, continue to grow well beyond that year and it is not possible, at this stage, to indicate the period, let alone the year, by which they may peak. Even a ‘Low Carbon Inclusive Growth scenario’ (LCIG) worked out by an expert group has concluded that even under that scenario, coal would account for 63 per cent of the country’s energy supply. India’s dependence on coal for energy is, sadly, a reality.

Coal concerns It is in this background that we have to envision the discussions between the US and Indian sides during Obama’s three-day visit starting January 23. While there is little scope for change in India’s climate goals, there are, indeed, other areas in which the two sides can engage themselves on a long-term basis. These are, improving the generation efficiency of coal-based thermal plants, wind and solar power installations, and the distribution efficiency of power grid systems. There are immense gains to be made in terms of optimising energy recovery from the ash-laden Indian coals, bringing down the high losses in power transmission, distribution and consumption and in establishing smart grids.

The spreading of energy markets within the country and the introduction of fiscal and market-based instruments to incentivise energy efficiency would be facilitated greatly by these improvements. Not the least, smartgrids are a must for optimising the integration of renewable power with power from conventional sources.

Heat recovery of about 32 per cent from coal — the current performance level in India — can go up to almost 42 per cent by deploying super critical boiler technology and still further with ultra-super critical boilers. The expert group on Low Carbon Economy has suggested, quite rightly, that at least 50 per cent of the thermal power generation capacity in 2030 should be of the supercritical variety.

In the area of renewable power, according to the Lawrence-Livermore Laboratory estimates, India’s conventionally-accepted wind power potential of 49 giga watts (GW) at a windmill hub-height of 50 m can be enhanced to 748GW if the hub height is raised to 80 m. This will also help to reduce the land requirements for windmill farms.

Join hands Therefore, collaborative efforts between the two countries in research, design and development and transfer of technology in the areas of renewable and non-renewable power would be highly rewarding to both.

A noteworthy initiative of the September 2014 meeting of the two leaders in Washington was the announcement by Obama to facilitate financing of the order of $1 billion by the US Exim Bank to enable India to procure solar technologies from the US. A similar gesture in other areas of improved energy technologies, conventional and renewable, would be welcome.

The US President’s visit takes place at a time when he has cause to be buoyant with the outcome at Lima. The Lima Call for Climate Action is much to his liking as, in essence, it follows his proposal for an emissions reduction regime made at Copenhagen in 2009.

In such a mood, he would rather like to be generous and leave behind him a legacy of accord than discord with India. As for India, it should look forward to reviving the cordiality and goodwill that marked its relations with the US in the 1980s and early 1990s in the green arena.

The writer is a former secretary to the Government of India

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