This Article is written by Meher (a fourth-year BBA LLB Student at Christ University Bangalore)
INTRODUCTION:
The world is in its recovering phase. The pandemic made a huge dent in every graph. So, the recovery is taking a lifetime but we will be there sooner or later. Meanwhile, there are other global level threats to deal with. Many countries of the world are suffering from many crises like hunger, climate change and other problems which might erase those countries from the world map. The primary reason for most of the crises occurring today is climate change via global warming. All the ecosystems are disturbed and we are paying the consequences. The sad part is the consequences do not stop with us, it becomes a perpetual cycle for generations to come. The earth we got, is not the earth we are leaving for the next generations. At the end of the day everyone is to blame, the policymakers, the business people, the governments and finally we, the people. We plan for greater things, a great future but we destroy it all with the thirst for resources and energy. We have sustainable development goals, millennium development goals but all of them are sidelined for a “common future”. There is no common future for all of us, the marginalized suffer more and the future generations even greater. There is no intergenerational equity. The only solution and the link to all the problems the global community is facing is energy. The shift in energy, transition in the energy mix. Energy laws and theories surrounding it are still in the initial stages addressing the consumption and accessibility shortcomings. But states need to identify that energy is much more than that, it might be a solution to most of the worldly crises. Especially climate change can only be addressed by the shift in the energy mix to alternative sources rather than plunging the earth for its resources. This transition needs huge financing and what better way than to address it through the budgetary policy.
BUDGET AND RENEWABLE ENERGY:
The 2022 budget was a much-anticipated budget for the country. Especially when every sector is suspended, waiting either to crumble or grow. Despite the shortcomings, the 2022 budget does prove to have greater parlance on energy transition. Budget 2022 highlights India’s climate action goals and identifies sustainable growth as the priority. COP 26 has a huge influence on the Budget 2022 energy transition goals. The budget provides for various aspects of the transition. The renewable energy mix is spread over various renewable sources. The budget tries to cover and invest in most of them to fight the growing climate crisis. The budget allocated the clean energy fund over various sources ranging from solar energy and its Production linked incentive (PLI) schemes to batteries and electric vehicles. One of the major predicted items which were missing in the budget is hydrogen energy. But the government did announce a separate national hydrogen policy. This policy does hold some hope for the renewable energy mix. However, green hydrogen and hydrogen vehicles have made an appearance in the previous budget but those goals and investments were not realized. The finance minister announced that almost Rs. 19,500 crores have been allocated to PLI schemes and the budget aims at increasing the giga watts from solar energy to 280 by the year 2030. The government claims that the budget is clean energy-oriented and aims to provide jobs to locals and increase farmers’ income through various alternative ways of energy production. The aim is to boost domestic manufacturing of clean energy technologies and increase production from them.
ANALYSIS:
All the plans and budgets seem plausible until they are not. The world right now is going through energy crisis. There is power and energy shortage all around the world. It looks similar to the embargo times. It would be very beneficial if all the budget plans pan out. Everything right now seems so unachievable. After the pandemic, energy prices kept rising. Currently in India, the natural gas and petrol prices are sky-high. The marginal sections are the highest sufferers as always. Energy is the common link for any diverse society. The marginalized the rich, the poor, irrespective of religion, caste, creed, energy affects us all inevitably. As per the current trends, Indians only see one thing as threatening as the pandemic- fossil fuel prices. The electricity, petrol prices went up. With the inclusion of renewable energy sources, there is a chance of retaliating this situation to a less severe one. Renewable energy sources might be a relief but they do not come without a cost. Some experts say they might render a higher cost on the environment and the people. The investment costs and the unreliability trump all the advantages from renewable sources. Sources like wind and solar are so dependent on weather. In a country like India with huge energy consumption, it is practically impossible to rely on such non-resilient energy sources. The budget is aimed to reach the net zero-emission goals.
The COP 26 guaranteed that India stuck to the emission goals to reach the sustainable level by 2070. All the efforts to realize the clean environment dream and to correct the climate change. But can it even be corrected at this stage? It has been denied for so long and we are responding when it is sending shock waves throughout the world. Including budgetary plans for electric vehicles and solar energy is not going to change the world anytime sooner. It is the consumption pattern, the human behaviour and attitude towards energy and allocation of energy that should change. Electric vehicles wouldn’t solve all the problems regarding global warming and reduce carbon emissions. All we know is change has started and it is in its baby steps while the plundering still goes on even to feed the renewable sources. It is too soon to assess the true price of renewable energy but we will realize another way to feed the growing energy needs.
CONCLUSION:
Despite the buzz surrounding green energy funds and their allocation, we can say that the government has taken decently measures to address climate change. Amid the rising fuel prices looking for an alternative might be the only way. India hopes to replace most of the fossil fuels with renewable sources by the earliest. Green has become the new buzzword. So it is not a that bad idea to share the burden among other renewable sources to be a part of the energy mix. The only breaking point is that, are we relying too much on unproven technologies to bail us out. This is a dramatic scale-up as we put huge expectations regarding the transition to green energy and the ambition of climate action. The only question that remains is would it all pan out, would it still be possible to rectify in the coming years if something goes wrong. Would we be able to fulfil the wish list of the climate and the people? Well, it is a tad bit late to look for answers in the budget, only time can tell us on which side does renewable energy stand in the coming years.
