JOIN USSMEs should be given soft loans to go green: TERI chief
Vibha Dhawan joined The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) way back in 1985 and served the institute in various capacities in the past three decades while carrying out active research on biotechnology. Dhawan, currently the institute’s director-general, spoke to DH’s Kalyan Ray on how people’s perception on climate change has evolved and whether enough money is available on the table for adaptation and mitigation works.
What are the visible signs of climate change that we are seeing?
Earlier, there were many who would say ‘we should tackle food security or talk about climate change, which may be a threat in the distant future’. Today, we say food productivity is getting affected because of the climate. And threats are no longer distant. In the past 20-25 years, we have come from the point of convincing people about a change that will perhaps disrupt their lives to lives getting disrupted due to climate change. In the last 2-3 years, climate change really affected people’s lives – from the Amazon forest fire and floods in Germany and New York to unprecedented temperature in Delhi in May and too many cloudbursts in the hills. The calamities have become so common, and most of them are due to the changing climate.
The latest report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the consequences of climate change would be irreversible and a drastic cut in Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions is needed. Will such a cut be realistic?
If there is a will, there is a way. You have to start with the policy. Look at LED bulbs. A few years back, when they were introduced, the government had to offer subsidies. Today, there is no subsidy and still LED bulbs are everywhere. Policy and technology development continued in parallel till they became affordable to all. On greenhouse gas emissions, there will not be one solution. The announcements made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Glasgow is an indication of the government’s commitment. However, we need incentives from the government. Since the small and medium sectors suffered a lot during the Covid-19 pandemic, soft loans may be given to them to go the cleaner way. Also, renewable energy options should be cheaper compared to conventional in the long run. Solar was so expensive when we started, but today it's two rupees and a few paise per unit. We can look at a localised generation of electricity to take care of a particular region. Once you are energy secure, there will be many ways for rural development; farming would be lucrative because of agro-industries and people wouldn’t migrate to cities.
You are talking about an uninterrupted power supply, but people living close to the national capital like the residents of Gurugram and Noida are not getting assured power, because of which they are forced to use polluting diesel generators. Your comments?
It is very upsetting. Last year, the air pollution came just after the Covid-19 wave. The government closed down several industrial units as they were using gen-sets. But they were not using it out of choice. Gen-sets are more expensive than grid electricity, which the government should have provided. The Commission on Air Quality Management (CAQM) has started discussing the issue now for this year. The Commission is telling Discoms that they would have to give an uninterrupted power supply. The CAQM is also looking at the option of running gen-sets with natural gas. Perhaps there should be incentives for the industry to go to solar as much as possible.
If the global temperature has to be restricted to 1.5 degrees C, then only 17% of the carbon budget is left. But if the limit in temperature rise is fixed at 2 degrees C, then 35% carbon space would be available. Which route should be taken?
It's not an either/or kind of solution. We have to work in both directions. We simply can’t say, 'we will mitigate and allow the temperature to go up'. We would like to keep it under control as much as possible and thereafter reverse it.
Do we have enough money for adaptation and mitigation work?
No, and that’s the whole point. Western countries must realise that their objective should be to disseminate technology and not IPRs, or make money out of them. We needed (climate-friendly) technologies yesterday. We don’t have time to wait. In each COP meeting, a lot of promises are made, but not much funding has come.