India’s climate policies show promise in solar and energy efficiency but could use improvement overall, said a report released on Tuesday.
An interim assessment of the eight national government missions to address climate change found that while India’s missions on solar energy and energy efficiency benefitted from specific strategies and clear courses of action, other mission plans were too broad to be very effective.
The report by an Indian non-profit think-tank called the Centre for Development Finance (CDF) at the Institute for Financial Management and Research also found that India was missing several crucial opportunities. These included setting more ambitious targets and integrating activities across different missions in ways that would also benefit social development.
For example, installing solar lighting and pumps in areas without electricity would support solar and other cleantech industries, and also further the goals of the solar and energy efficiency missions.
“In one year this could result in energy equity, displace carbon and bring in new companies and jobs to dovetail with the missions,” said the report.
CDF senior researcher and lead author of the report Dr Sujatha Byravan noted in a statement that the missions were India’s initial attempt at setting policy for a climate change problem that will exist for an extremely long time.
“We hope the missions will remain dynamic and responsive to recommendations from experts and lessons from implementation. Mid-stream corrections will have to be made and incorporated into future Plan documents,” she said.
CDF used input from interviews with over 50 experts from academia, NGOs and government agencies to assess the government missions on aspects such as goals, technology, financing, research and development, and capacity for carrying out plans. The Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council reviewed and commented on a draft of the report in June.
The Prime Minister’s office set up the eight national missions in 2008 as part of its first National Action Plan on Climate Change. The missions are:
- National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA);
- National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency (NMEEE);
- National Mission for a Green India (GIM);
- National Mission on Sustainable Habitat (NMSH);
- National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE);
- National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change (NMSKCC);
- National Solar Mission (NSM); and
- National Water Mission (NWM).
The report authors lauded the solar mission for its progress, noting that it has raised ambitions for solar energy production nation-wide and attracted new companies to the industry.
However, they cautioned that the mission was missing an opportunity to add social development benefits through the use of higher targets for off-grid solar projects for communities without electricity. The report also noted that the mission needed to address quality control and future innovation within the industry.
The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) has set a target of 20 gigawatts (GW) for grid-connected solar capacity and 2 GW for off-grid capacity by 2022. To ramp up utility-scale solar, the government established renewable purchase obligations (RPOs) that require power distributors to include a set percentage of solar power in their energy mix.
Indian newspaper The Economic Times reported late last year that state utilities claimed they would fail to meet RPO targets for solar, which ranged from 0.25 to 0.5 per cent depending on the state, because solar capacity was not growing fast enough.
While some utilities have claimed that solar targets are too ambitious, the authors of the assessment found that the energy efficiency mission had been too easy on the utilities.
The mission has implemented good policies for the end users of energy, mainly large-scale manufacturers, through financing schemes and its Perform, Achieve, Trade (PAT) scheme, noted the report. It also said that the mission has done little to challenge the energy sector with regards to the large amounts of energy lost in the state power grids.
All the missions needed to better coordinate plans and activities to avoid significant gaps in climate adaptation, said the report.
For example, the water mission gives little attention to the agricultural sector despite the fact that irrigation consumes about 70 per cent of the world’s fresh water, according to the United Nations. The report also criticised the water mission for failing to prioritise the reduction of water demand.
At the same time, the sustainable agriculture mission has produced a plan that does not prioritise climate issues and that varies little from the sector’s previous strategic plans, found the report, which said that the mission has also neglected poor farmers.
The report suggested integrated projects such as solar-powered drip irrigation systems that were energy and water efficient.
The assessment, which can be found on http://www.indiaclimatemissions.org, included scorecards on each of the missions as well as general comments on India’s climate policy from the experts interviewed.
Overall, India’s climate plan needs a new long-term approach that breaks traditional ministerial boundaries and learns rapidly from successes and failures, the experts noted.
“Unless the country is able to do these things, our goals and aspirations for ‘climate-proof ’ development will not be attained,” said the authors.
