Adoption Of Green Technology And How It Impacts Climate Change
With a contribution of 7% of the global CO2 emissions, India pledged to achieve its goals of Net Zero by 2070 at the COP26 summit held in Glasgow. The Union Environment Minister, Mr. Bhupendra Yadav, stated that the ministry’s policy intends to balance the challenges caused by the infrastructure development in forests. India needs a sharp shift in the current energy sources to clean energy sources, to take on the net zero targets as it will have a huge impact on the country’s GDP.
What has India promised?
India is ranked fourth on the list of biggest emitters of carbon dioxide after China, the United States, and the European Union. But its emissions per capita are much lower than the other countries due to its vast population. India joined the G20 nations in taking steps towards becoming net zero by promising the five elixirs that will pave its way to become carbon neutral by 2070. Here are some of the immediate goals: rising the capacity of non-fossil fuel energy by 500 GW, ensuring that 50% of its energy will be sourced from renewable sources by 2030, reducing the total projected carbon emissions by 1 billion tonnes, and reducing the carbon intensity below 45% by the same year.
What is needed to achieve these goals?
To achieve the ambitious goals set, India requires to take certain immediate steps. Developing a climate resilience strategy is one of the crucial steps as multiple states of India experience different types of climate threats. Investing in green innovation to mitigate emissions is yet another way that can help India advance smartly towards its Net Zero goals. As mentioned by the finance minister several times in the parliamentary speech, the words like green, clean, and sustainable stole the show emphasizing the significance of green technology in India’s efforts against climate change. Further to this, to reduce the country’s carbon footprint, the targeted sectors are power, infrastructure, auto, heavy industries, etc. These sectors can be aided with the facility of sustainability as a service by various emerging green technologies that are sustainably impacting the environment with their efforts.
Current State of India:
India is currently taking the initial steps towards net zero goals. It is experiencing a reformation in the transport sector by transitioning to electric vehicle manufacturing schemes to accelerate e-mobility with plans to make 30% of new automobile sales to be electric vehicles by 2030. Policies to rule out old vehicles are being implemented to support existing schemes. An active number of businesses and companies are partnering with different organizations such as the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to participate in achieving the goals collectively and also in policymaking to address the problem of air pollution and work toward a circular economy, while also removing the commodity-driven deforestation in the sector of supply chains. Big companies are planning to switch to Green Bonds. India has also recently increased the transparency of the environmental footprint of businesses.
With an opportunity to host the G20 Summit in 2023, India can not only present its progress and plans to achieve the goals set towards carbon neutrality but also encourage other countries to do the same, cooperate and invest in the universal goal.
In view of deploying emerging green technologies as a force to reduce and mitigate emissions from the identified sectors, new sustainability-focused technologies are emerging rapidly. Green technology will be key in propelling the transition to net zero. Many startups with emerging technologies have already started scaling up their climate tech businesses in the identified sectors. The goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2070 will give leverage to many green tech startups to scale further and that may result in inviting investors and contributing to the global net zero goals in the bigger picture.
