COP26

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Is Joe Biden about to show up to Cop26 empty-handed? | Kate Aronoff

      by

      OpinionCop26Is Joe Biden about to show up to Cop26 empty-handed?Kate AronoffThe tools at Biden’s disposal to limit dangerous global heating are enormous. If he wants it, he can do it – but does he want it? Thu 28 Oct 2021 09.24 EDTLast modified on Thu 28 Oct 2021 12.39 EDTAfter months of bullish rhetoric about the United States’ climate leadership, the US could still show up to COP 26 empty handed. That doesn’t have to be the case – whatever charismatic obstructionists like Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema have to say about it. The climate certainly isn’t waiting on them to change: the UN Emissions Gap Report released this week finds that the world is on track to warm by a catastrophic 2.7C degrees.The White House has pegged its Paris Agreement success on being able to pass an ambitious spending package, with plenty of money built in for key climate priorities. In recent weeks the administration pegged its audacious goal, of slashing emission by at least 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, to something called a Clean Electricity Payments Program (CEPP). That’s out. And even if the compromise $55bn a year of climate spending the White House promised on Thursday makes it through to legislation, carrots for green spending can only go so far. The US will still not have picked up critical sticks needed to go after the polluting industries driving up temperatures. The dirty dozen: meet America’s top climate villainsRead moreThey’re desperately needed. According to the UN-backed 2021 Production Gap Report, the world’s governments are on track to produce double the amount of fossil fuels than is consistent with capping warming at 1.5C degrees. In the US, oil and gas production are now on track to expand by 17 and 12%, respectively, by 2030.The United States showing up in good faith to Glasgow will require it to step on the third rail of both US and global climate politics: going after fossil fuels. Those words don’t appear in the Paris Agreement itself. But rapidly winding them down is essential to achieving its goals of limiting warming by “well below” 2C degrees, with an aspiration (repeated frequently by the Biden administration) to limit temperature rise to just 1.5C degrees.The Biden administration is also on track to approve more oil and gas drilling on federal lands than any president since George W Bush. Sadly, this is not the first time Democrats have let us down on climate action. It was just days after the Paris Agreement that the Obama administration quietly repealed the 40 year-old crude oil export ban as part of an omnibus, must-pass spending measure in 2015. In the four years after its passage crude oil exports expanded by 750%, allowing the US to eventually cross the threshold to becoming a net oil exporter in the winter of 2020. The same year the United States was the world’s third largest gas exporter.This trajectory is plainly out of step with a liveable planet. Indigenous leaders who converged in Washington under the banner of People v Fossil Fuels earlier this month were joined by 13 members of Congress recently in calling on the administration to use the full extent of its powers to start treating the climate crisis like the emergency it is, putting a stop to fossil fuel expansion. The tools at Biden’s disposal, as they note, are enormous.The EPA has the power to stringently regulate carbon dioxide and methane, which it’s expected to make steps toward soon. By declaring a national emergency, Biden could reinstate the crude oil export ban virtually overnight, stemming the flow of US fossil fuels being burned abroad to make a handful of executives here rich.Such a declaration would unlock the power to finally put the US on a wartime footing to rapidly deploy renewable energy and create millions of union jobs in the process, rather than relying only on piecemeal measures like tax credits. The Department of Energy could reject export permits under the Natural Gas Act. The Department of Interior could stop selling below-market rate leases to drill on public lands, activity that accounts for roughly a quarter of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.There’s plenty of other low-hanging fruit, too: Biden could move to cancel the Line 3 pipeline, along with the Dakota Access Pipeline, Line 5 and the Mountain Valley Pass Pipeline. A recent analysis by Oil Change International, in fact, found that the White House has to prevent 1.6bn metric tonnes of emissions per year by rejecting those and another 20 fossil fuel projects. Existing laws like the Clean Water Act and National Environmental Policy Act grant the executive branch broad authority to do so. Internationally, the administration could join the UK and Italy at the G20 this week in pushing to phase-out coal and formally end overseas financing for all oil and gas projects through the US Export-Import Bank, as well. The State Department could drop its longstanding objections to concrete discussions of loss and damage financing and historical responsibility for rising temperatures at the UN climate talks in Glasgow.Joe Biden and members of his administration have frequently called climate change an “existential threat.” If the White House wanted to act like that’s true – and assert real US leadership at COP 26 – it could.
      Kate Aronoff is a staff writer at The New Republic. She is the co-author of A Planet To Win: Why We Need A Green New Deal (Verso) and the co-editor of We Own The Future: Democratic Socialism, American Style (The New Press)
      TopicsCop26OpinionClimate crisisJoe BidenUS politicsUS foreign policyJoe ManchincommentReuse this content More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Manchin thwarts Biden’s climate plan: Politics Weekly Extra

      by

      As Joe Biden gears up for his trip to Glasgow for the Cop26 summit, Senator Joe Manchin continues to try to water down the reconciliation bill, which as it stands includes transformational provisions to stem the adverse affects of the climate crisis. Joan Greve and Oliver Milman look at the potential fallout for the world if Manchin gets his way

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      Archive: Sky News and NBC News Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com. Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts. More

    • 175 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘No more time to waste,’ chair of House climate panel warns ahead of Cop26

      by

      Climate crisis‘No more time to waste,’ chair of House climate panel warns ahead of Cop26Democrat Kathy Castor warns that even Biden’s ambitious Build Back Better bill ‘doesn’t really get us to net zero by 2050’ Lauren Gambino in Washington@laurenegambinoThu 21 Oct 2021 03.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 21 Oct 2021 03.01 EDTThe alarm bells are ringing. A code red has been declared. With no less than the future of the planet at stake, Kathy Castor, chair of the select committee on the climate crisis, has warned Democrats that there is precious little time left to enact the US president’s aggressive climate agenda and avert the most catastrophic impacts of global warming.“We just don’t have any more time to waste,” the Florida congresswoman said in an interview with the Guardian ahead of crucial UN climate talks in Scotland. “We have got to act now or else we’re condemning our children and future generations to a really horrendous time.”‘This is our last chance’: Biden urged to act as climate agenda hangs by a threadRead moreClimate scientists say the world must keep the average global temperature from rising more than 1.5C (2.7F) compared with the pre-industrial era, or risk catastrophically more dangerous effects of climate change. Upon rejoining the global effort to confront the climate crisis, Joe Biden vowed that the US would cut emissions by 50% to 52% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.Perhaps the best hope of achieving that goal is embedded in legislation pending before Congress that must overcome the objections of a coal-state senator and razor-thin Democratic majorities. If enacted, Castor said the plan to slash planet-heating emissions by accelerating America’s transition away from fossil fuels would be “the most important and far-reaching clean energy and climate bill ever passed by the US Congress”.But with days left before Biden is expected to depart for the summit, significant obstacles remain.Senator Joe Manchin, one of the party’s last remaining holdouts, made clear that he would not support a proposed clean electricity program, effectively gutting the most powerful piece of Democrats’ climate plan. The $150bn proposal, known as the Clean Electricity Performance Program, used a carrot-and-stick approach to reward energy utilities that transitioned from coal and natural gas toward clean power sources like wind, solar and nuclear energy, and penalizing those that do not.Now White House officials and congressional negotiators are scrambling to salvage pieces of the plan while finding alternative policies that will keep the US on track to meet the president’s emissions targets, including, potentially, a tax on carbon dioxide pollution.“It’s clear that investing in clean electricity is one of the most effective ways to unlock emission reductions and create good-paying jobs across our economy, which is why we’ve fought to include a robust Clean Electricity Performance Program in the Build Back Better Act,” Castor said in a statement following news of Manchin’s objection to the program. “Every step we take now to clean up our electricity sector will make a world of difference in the decades to come – and we cannot afford to keep kicking the can down the road.”After the Democratic takeover of the House in 2018, Castor was tapped to lead the newly created House select committee on the climate crisis. Its task was to conduct research and hearings that would educate the public about the threat posed by climate change and pave the way for mitigation legislation.Last year, the panel’s Democratic members released a sprawling climate plan that aimed to put the nation on the path to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It also aimed to make environmental justice a priority by focusing on the communities that are the most vulnerable to climate change.A summer of devastating heatwaves, wildfires and hurricanes has made the risk of inaction painfully clear to Americans across the country, Castor said, speaking from Tampa, Florida, where rising sea levels are no longer a threat but a costly reality for many residents.“When you have farmers whose crops or livestock have been flooded out or dropping from an extreme heat, or wildfires are burning through your town, or your electric grid isn’t resilient and people die in Texas because of a cold snap, that’s a wake-up call,” Castor said. “And I think now people are really looking at policymakers and asking, ‘What are you going to do about it?’”Republicans remain a chief obstacle to Democrats’ climate goals.After years of denialism, there is a growing acceptance of climate science among rank-and-file Republicans, particularly those representing frontline districts battered by climate-fueled disasters. And yet, the party remains largely opposed to plans to stop burning fossil fuels, which climate scientists say is the most efficient and effective strategy to guard against an even hotter planet.Castor said Republicans are missing a once-in-a-generation economic opportunity. Democrats have touted the transition to clean energy as an economic boon, with the president repeatedly promising “jobs, jobs, jobs”.“As clean energy grows in districts across the country, you’ll see more Republicans finally understanding it creates jobs and is less costly for the folks they represent,” Castor predicted. “That’s kind of the only pathway out of the trap they’ve gotten themselves into – to talk about climate but not do anything about it.”Democrats face a difficult electoral map in 2022, with their control of both chambers at risk. Many activists and Democratic lawmakers believe they have one, perhaps fleeting, chance to aggressively confront climate change before possibly losing their majorities to Republicans, who are far less likely to act on the crisis.Castor believes that the Democrats’ spending bill cannot be the last legislative action taken by this Congress. But she is less concerned by the political deadline than the scientific one.Despite the difficulty of finding a consensus among Democrats on climate legislation, Castor believes there is more Congress can do this term. As an example, she pointed to a funding bill passed by the House that aims to minimize the carbon footprint of the Department of Defense, by making military bases more resilient and bolstering investments in research to better understand the security implications posed by climate change.At the same time, she expects the president will continue to use his executive authority and the rule-making powers of the Environmental Protection Agency to combat climate change.“We’ll have a lot more to do,” she said. “Even if we pass the Build Back Better Act as it is, that doesn’t really get us to net zero by 2050, which is the goal.”Democrats are increasingly optimistic that they will send Biden to Glasgow with an agreement that proves the US is capable of making good on its climate promises. How Democrats accomplish this – and whether they can do it by 31 October, when the summit is due to begin – is unclear.TopicsClimate crisisHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsBiden administrationCop26featuresReuse this content More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Tired of broken promises’: climate activists launch hunger strike outside White House

      by

      Climate crisis‘Tired of broken promises’: climate activists launch hunger strike outside White HouseThe protest comes a day after Joe Biden appeared ready to settle for a smaller environmental proposal ahead of the COP26 summit David Smith in Washington@smithinamericaWed 20 Oct 2021 15.20 EDTLast modified on Wed 20 Oct 2021 16.59 EDTWith little more than sun hats, placards and folding chairs, five young activists have begun a hunger strike in front of the White House urging Joe Biden not to abandon his bold climate agenda.The protest came a day after the US president threatened to water down his $3.5tn social and environmental legislation and with Washington’s commitments about to face scrutiny at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.The five protesters said they will eat no food and drink only water. They intend to gather in Lafayette Park every day from 8am to 8pm until their demands – which include a civilian climate corps, clean energy performance program and funding for environmental justice – are satisfied.The climate disaster is here – this is what the future looks likeRead moreOn Wednesday, in bright autumn sunshine, the quintet stood in a row holding signs including “Hunger striking for my dreams” and “Hunger striking for my future children”. They then sat down in red folding chairs with the words “Hunger strike day one” written in giant letters on the pavement before them.“I’m nervous in that I know that I will go on hunger strike until the demands are met, until I’m absolutely physically unable to,” said Ema Govea, a high school student who turned 18 on Tuesday. “That’s scary and I know my parents are worried and my friends back home are worried.”Biden met privately on Tuesday with nearly 20 moderate and progressive Democrats in separate groups as he appeared ready to ditch an ambitious $3.5tn package in favour of a smaller proposal that can win passage in the closely divided Congress. A provision central to Biden’s climate strategy is among those that could be scaled back or eliminated.Joe Manchin, a conservative senator from coal-rich West Virginia, has made clear that his opposes the Clean Energy Performance Plan, which would see the government impose penalties on electric utilities that fail to meet clean energy benchmarks and provide financial rewards to those that do, in line with Biden’s goal of achieving 80% “clean electricity” by 2030.The hunger strikers, who have worked with the Sunrise Movement youth group, warned that such concessions would be disastrous for the planet.Govea, from Santa Rosa, California, said: “Joe Biden made these campaign promises and we worked really hard on his campaign and to get him elected so that he could stop the climate crisis on these promises that he made.”Abandoning Biden’s commitments would signal to Cop26 that America has failed, Govea added. “I won’t let Joe Biden send a message to the world that he’s willing to give up on climate because I know that the American people, and young people across the country and across the world, are terrified but they’re ready to fight.”The hunger strikers drew TV cameras and curious glances from tourists in an area close to the White House that has reopened after months of security restrictions. As they sat, they spoke to reporters, checked emails and contemplated the long haul ahead.Paul Campion, 24, had skipped his usual breakfast of a bagel with cheese and eggs. He said: “I’m nervous about losing my my body weight, my muscles, about what it will do to my energy, to my brain, but I’m putting my body on the line because I’m here to remind Joe Biden of the promises that he’s made and that the stakes are this high, that young people are out here not eating because it’s this urgent and it’s this important.”Campion, a community organizer from Chicago, and his fellow protesters are “sick and tired of broken promises” from Biden and the Democrats, he continued. “I’m hunger striking because I want to live a full, beautiful life without fear of the climate crisis and I want to have children, I want to play with them in the park and I want to have community dinners where I invite my friends and family over and we sing and we have a bonfire.“That’s the future that we can have if Joe Biden will side with the people and deliver on his own agenda and actually fight for it instead of siding with ExxonMobil executives who are trying to gut his climate agenda and trying to prevent any significant federal action on climate change.”TopicsClimate crisisActivismJoe BidenBiden administrationUS politicsUS SenateUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

    • 200 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘This is our last chance’: Biden urged to act as climate agenda hangs by a thread

      by

      Climate crisis‘This is our last chance’: Biden urged to act as climate agenda hangs by a threadFailure to pass legislation to cut emissions before the UN summit in Glasgow could be catastrophic for efforts to curb global heating Oliver Milman in New York and Lauren Gambino in WashingtonMon 18 Oct 2021 06.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 18 Oct 2021 16.25 EDTWith furious environmental activists at the gates of the White House, and congressional Democrats fretting that a priceless opportunity to tackle catastrophic global heating may be slipping away, Joe Biden is facing mounting pressure over a climate agenda that appears to be hanging by a thread.Biden’s allies have warned that time is running perilously short, both politically and scientifically, for the US to enact sweeping measures to slash planet-heating emissions and spur other major countries to do the same. Failure to do so will escalate what scientists have said are “irreversible” climate impacts such as disastrous heatwaves, floods, wildfires and a mass upheaval of displaced people.The climate disaster is here – this is what the future looks likeRead moreThe administration’s multitrillion-dollar social spending package, widely considered the most comprehensive climate legislation ever put forward in the US, must survive razor-thin Democratic majorities in Congress and, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has vowed, pass in time for crucial UN climate talks in Scotland that begin in about two weeks.Embedded in the measure are plans to dramatically cut carbon emissions warming the planet and fueling climate disasters, a potentially historic set of policies that Pelosi has said would serve as “a model for the world”. But the 31 October deadline for passing the spending package and a smaller companion infrastructure bill appears increasingly ambitious as negotiations drag on between the White House, Democratic leaders and a pair of centrist holdouts in the Senate.The prospect of the world’s leading economic power arriving in Glasgow with no domestic policy to cut emissions will make it harder to convince other major emitters, primarily China, to do more at a time when governments are collectively failing to avert unlivable global heating.“They will look ridiculous if they show up with nothing,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat, told Guardian. “It would be bad for US leadership, bad for the talks and disastrous for the climate. Just disastrous.“The vast majority of Senate Democrats understand this is our last chance to act,” Whitehouse continued. The bill includes a program of payments and penalties to ensure utilities phase out fossil fuels from America’s electricity supply, a huge expansion in tax credits for clean energy and new restrictions on methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is emitted from oil and gas drilling. The legislation would slash US emissions by about 1bn tons by 2030, bringing Biden within striking distance of his target of cutting America’s emissions in half by this point.Whitehouse also revealed that the president’s administration “will not oppose” a new price on carbon emissions being added to the bill, following negotiations with Senate Democrats. “We have a very good chance of getting that,” he said. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the talks.The carbon fee, which would initially be set at $15 per ton of emissions before rising rapidly upwards over the course of several years, has long been a favored policy of economists and some moderate Republicans as a way to encourage polluters to switch to cleaner energy but has latterly been disregarded by activists and progressives.However, these measures will have to garner the vote of every Democrat in the Senate to pass, with Joe Manchin, a centrist from West Virginia, skeptical of the size and scope of the $3.5tn spending proposal. Manchin, a major recipient of donations from the coal industry, has said it “makes no sense” to pay utilities to phase in solar and wind power.Manchin is reportedly set to block the clean electricity program, which forms the main muscle of the climate package. This could prove a hugely consequential blow to the effort to constrain dangerous global heating. “This is high on the list of most consequential actions ever taken by an individual senator,” tweeted the climate campaigner Bill McKibben. “You’ll be able to see the impact of this vain man in the geologic record.”Whitehouse admitted it was unclear what Manchin will ultimately do but that he was confident that “there’s a window in which negotiations with Joe can produce a bill to reduce emissions enough so we are not in danger’s way.”Democrats are working feverishly to trim the $3.5tn proposal to about $2tn, in order to win the votes of centrists without losing the support of progressives. Among the many pressing questions Democrats must answer as they hurtle to meet their end-of-the-month deadline is how bold to go on climate.“There’s a lot of talk recently about what progressive lawmakers need to be willing to cut – what we have to be willing to negotiate on?” Senator Ed Markey, a lead proponent of the Green New Deal, said on a call with reporters this week. “Well, we can’t negotiate with deadly wildfires. They don’t negotiate. We cannot negotiate with massive hurricanes. They don’t negotiate. We can’t negotiate with floodwaters, sea level rise and drought and temperature rise. We can’t negotiate how much these climate-fueled disasters are costing us, tens of billions of dollars so far this year.“It’s time for us to stop talking about what is politically feasible, and start talking about what is scientifically necessary – we cannot compromise on science,” he said. Failure to pass the legislation would be disastrous for the US and the global community, the US climate envoy, John Kerry, said in an interview with the Associated Press.“It would be like President Trump pulling out of the Paris agreement, again,” he warned.The Build Back Better plan will put America on track to meet its goals, but it must not be the only action congress takes to combat the climate crisis, said congresswoman Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat and chair of the House select committee on the climate crisis. More federal action is needed to meet the scale of the emergency, she said.“Even if we pass the Build Back Better Act as it is, that doesn’t get us to net-zero by 2050, which is the goal,” she said in an interview. Pointing to the latest climate research and a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that declared a “code red” for humanity, she added: “We are going to have to do more.”While Biden can do little about the machinations of the Senate, the president has come under growing criticism that his own actions have not matched his rhetoric. Biden, who has said that the “nation and the world are in peril” from a “code red” climate emergency, has reincorporated the US to the Paris climate agreement and sought to restore some of the environmental rules axed by Donald Trump.But his administration has also approved a flurry of new oil and gas drilling permits on public lands, urged oil-producing countries to ramp up production to help lower gasoline prices and declined to stop major fossil fuel projects such as Line 3, an oil pipeline expansion in Minnesota that has sparked violent clashes between police and those protesting against its construction. “I think [the administration] has missed an enormous opportunity to join the battle against those behind the problem – the fossil fuel industry,” said Whitehouse. Simmering resentment at the president exploded outside the White House last week, with four consecutive days of protests resulting in nearly 300 climate activists being arrested and removed by police. On Thursday, a banner was unfurled reading “We need real solutions, not false promises”, with protesters calling on Biden to declare a climate emergency and halt a slew of proposed pipelines and drilling projects – a report released by Oil Change International has found that 21 major fossil fuel projects under review by the administration would cause the emissions equivalent of 316 new coal-fired power plants if they went ahead.“We felt we had someone who had our back and then he [Biden] wavered,” said Joye Braun, a campaigner at the Indigenous Environmental Network who traveled from South Dakota for the protests. “He made a lot of promises to us, as Indigenous people, that he’s not following through on. To allow something like Line 3 makes no damn sense.”Climate scientists have echoed the need for urgency. The world is on course for nearly 3C of heating by the end of the century, which would bring punishing impacts to people around the globe. Precipitously steep emissions cuts need to occur immediately to avoid this turmoil, scientists say.“Unless we have greater progress on CO2 cuts we are faced with a miserable outcome,” said Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at Duke University. “A world above 2C is not a pretty one. This reconciliation bill isn’t enough and it’s discouraging to see the Biden administration still approving fossil fuel projects. That should be very much in our past.”In recent days, the White House and Democrats have sought to temper expectations that Democrats would reach a deal before the summit – and that a failure to meet their deadline would hurt Biden’s credibility as a global leader in the fight against climate change.“None of our objectives for the president’s climate agenda begins or ends on November 1 and 2, or the week after,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters last week. “Whether our agenda has passed or not is not going to be the defining factor.”The stars may not be aligned long to address climate breakdown. Democrats, having waited a decade for this opportunity, could lose control of Congress in midterm elections next year to a Republican party still unwilling to confront, or even acknowledge, the crisis. The prospect of not acting for another decade is almost unthinkable.“We can’t fail again,” said Whitehouse. “We just can’t.”TopicsClimate crisisJoe BidenBiden administrationUS SenateUS CongressUS politicsCop26newsReuse this content More

    • 75 Shares159 Views

      in World Politics

      Shaping the Future of Energy Collaboration

      by

      The cancelation of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s much-awaited visit to India is disappointing but unsurprising. India, a country with nearly 1.4 billion people, is currently confronting a second wave of COVID-19 infections. Though all is not lost as bilateral talks are expected to take place virtually on April 26. High on the agenda remains the launch of Roadmap 2030, which will foreseeably set the tone for India-UK relations in a post-COVID era and pave the way for a free trade agreement.

      The Missing Pieces to Avoid a Climate Disaster

      READ MORE

      This shared vision, forming a critical piece of the “global Britain” agenda and the UK’s post-Brexit foreign policy, is expected to lay out a framework for enhanced cooperation across a much broader set of policy pillars. One such area is climate action, which is a key part of economic growth strategies and the global green energy agenda for both countries.

      As signatories to the 2015 Paris Agreement — the international treaty on climate change — India and the UK have sizable ambitions to invest in creating cleaner and sustainable energy systems. This time last year, the United Kingdom experienced its longest coal-free run to date, a significant milestone for an economy that generated about 40% of its electricity from coal just a decade ago. While India’s green energy transition is comparatively nascent, it has made significant strides toward expanding its renewable energy capacity, especially in solar power, where it is emerging as a global leader.

      Energy Sources

      Although the two countries have vastly different energy sources and consumption patterns, this creates a unique opportunity for each economy to capitalize on its individual strengths. In offshore wind power, the UK is the largest global player, while India has only begun to scratch the surface of its wind potential. The United Kingdom’s technical prowess will play a crucial role in supporting the growth of India’s offshore wind energy — from the meteorological expertise required to evaluate wind patterns and energy production potential to joint research and development opportunities.

      The growth of electric vehicles (EVs) is another area where each market has distinct strengths. India, for example, can rely on the UK’s experience as it undertakes the massive infrastructure exercise of deploying smart charging EV stations. The UK can draw on India’s success with battery-powered three-wheelers to develop sustainable last-mile connectivity solutions. Strengthened bilateral cooperation on these fronts will not only accelerate the EV revolution globally but can also serve to contain China’s dominance in this market.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The Indian and British governments are closely collaborating around climate action. This is evident from recent trips to India by the UK’s Alok Sharma, the president of this year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) that will take place in Glasgow, and Lord Tariq Ahmad, the minister for South Asia and the Commonwealth.

      It is, however, important to expand the scope of these engagements to include small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which constitute a powerhouse of skill and experience. SMEs based in the UK can play a significant role in supporting India’s energy transition. British companies could adapt their innovations for the local market, while in turn benefiting from India’s strong manufacturing base and engineering skills. To tap into this market opportunity, governments could facilitate SME-focused trade delegations as well as joint-venture opportunities for cleantech startups.

      Green financing would play an equally important role in truly unlocking the value of such partnerships. This would be through existing bilateral instruments like the Sustainable Finance Forum and Green Growth Equity Fund or the UK’s soon-to-be-launched revenue mechanism that will mobilize private investment into carbon capture and hydrogen projects. This is especially important for India, which is looking at green hydrogen in a big way and is set to launch its first national hydrogen roadmap this year. As the UK’s carbon capture market grows, this could support India’s plans to produce hydrogen from natural gas, creating new avenues for technology sharing.

      If one thing is clear, it is that the opportunities are immense and the existing foundation is strong. With the stage set and the actors in place, Roadmap 2030 could certainly stand to benefit not just India and the UK, but the world at large in delivering a cleaner, more affordable and resilient energy future.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More