Energize U.S.-India: Opportunities to Further Clean Energy Ties

welcome to csis online the way we bring you events is changing but we'll still present live analysis and award-winning digital media from our drakopolis ideas lab all on your time live or on demand this is csis online good morning good afternoon good evening especially to our friends tuning in from india my name is nicos safos and i'm the james lessenger chair for energy and geopolitics here at the center for strategic and international studies and i'm just so thrilled to welcome you today to a conversation on the clean energy relationship between the united states and india you know when i think about the work that we need to do to advance the energy transition over the next 30 years there are very few bilateral relationships that are just as important as the u.s india relationship and when i think of the work that we have done here at csis both in the energy security and climate change program but also with our colleagues at the wine chair and around the center you know i'm so proud of the work that we have done to advance the cause and play a small part in helping strengthen that bilateral relationship um we have a little bit of a of a scheduling issue our our colleagues and our guests from india the secretary of the joint sanctuary have been tied up in a meeting we're hoping they can join us but we had a presentation slated anyway so we thought we would get started um in uh in terms of logistics i ask that you by now know how to use the functions to send your your questions uh to us and we will be uh looking at those as we as we go along and and so with that i'm going to pass it to my former colleague karihia sang who's also the director of progress with the set fund uh to kick us off in this conversation thank you nicos um good afternoon good evening good morning to everyone here from the hague in the netherlands uh i'm karthik singh and i'm i'm wearing a couple of different hats today i am now a non-resident uh senior associate at csis and also director of programs at the said fund the said fund supports the best of government efforts and civil society to meet the sustainable development goals including supporting a just clean energy transition and i am honored to be having this conversation uh with representatives from the united states government to start with and hopefully representatives from india but um you know dr andrew light is somebody that i have known for quite some time so this should be a a good conversation a relaxed conversation to have um let me just take a moment of course uh to wish a happy ganesh chaturthi to everybody in india and around the world that are celebrating um it's an important holiday in india celebrating a most iconic hindu deity and i think the fact that lord ganesha is the the god of beginnings and remover of obstacles is particularly auspicious for us as we talk about a revamped strategic clean energy partnership between the united states and india let me of course provide a little bit of context on u.s india energy ties because the issue is one of the key pillars uh of that defines u.s india relations more broadly and it has a long arc um that if one were to reflect on it um is it can be tracked where we were in in moments in time in terms of dominance of certain energy technologies of the availability of finance and how those have changed over time and you know in the arc of u.s india energy collaboration in particular i think some key moments that can be remembered are of course the indo-us civil nuclear cooperation agreement which was a major breakthrough in bolstering bilateral energy ties more broadly but also things like the greenhouse gas prevention program that was meant to aid in managing air quality issues from thermal power plants as well as making them more efficient people know that there was also a shot in the arm given to uh fossil gas uh collaboration between the united states and india over the last few years and while renewable energy has been um always an area of collaboration i think between the two countries when it comes to energy it has gained new prominence uh and new strategic importance particularly as the business models the availability of finance um and just the innovations uh in clean energy technologies has has improved um uh in the last five to seven years um now a couple of things are going to happen today of course i want to hear um and have a conversation with um uh dr light about uh what's happening in this revamp to us india's strategic clean energy partnership um but to aid in that effort i want to also um highlight a report that was launched as part of a project that ernst young and the federation of indian chambers of commerce and industry collaborated on to basically compile um a list of shovel-ready green infrastructure projects that can be invested in right now and can be the focus of such bilateral energy partnerships as many countries around the world including of course the united states try to focus on helping india meet its ambitious clean energy targets and to aid in that and to share some of the highlights of this report i'm going to call upon mr sunesh kumar who is a partner at ey india um to to talk us through that and then we'll we'll have a conversation with dr light oh yeah thank you so much uh karthik and uh very good morning good afternoon good evening to everybody around um it's it's a great privilege uh here for me to be actually speaking to to all of you you know the senior representatives uh from u.s energy department cis csis and sed senior folks so thank you so much for giving us this opportunity we indeed had this honor to work with with sed on on developing a report on uh you know a clean energy status in india and what is happening uh you know looking at some of the shovel ready projects for investments in india and what is the status and what's holding them back uh for doing this we work closely with the ministry uh and you know various associated departments uh in the ministry and we also work with several players in the private sector to understand where they are and what is going on uh so you know happy to share these findings with you today and you know before that i would really uh like to highlight that uh you know there is a lot of scope and uh you know a lot of sort of opportunity for a strategic partnership between us and india in all of these areas you know so whether it is a great scale renewable energy projects or whether it is uh distributed in renewable energy projects or whether it is uh manufacturing of batteries or energy storage so actually all of these areas are now open india has a huge target uh to accomplish and which it is which it has set for itself uh so uh you know uh a significant uh opportunity for u.s india partnership that we see uh so in the next few minutes briefly i will summarize uh the findings uh so um as as uh kartike said uh you know we looked at some shovel ready ready project so these were about 660 projects that we looked at of in the complete life cycle where they are and uh what is happening uh we also looked at uh what is at stake you know for by development of these projects or by not development of these projects what do we tend to lose and in the post covered uh period you know how can they aid in economic recovery and these covered the projects across renewable power generation energy storage ev charging infrastructure and manufacturing original uh our equipment so these were the uh sub sectors that we covered uh for this study yeah uh can we move on yeah so uh you know uh highlighting briefly what is at stake so of course you know these are 660 projects that we looked at uh so this these collectively aggregate to more than 120 gigawatts of renewable energy coming in and a large number of ev charging stations uh you know this involves a capital outlay of almost 82 billion uh usd uh and also offers an employment potential for the country of about 1.5 million so you know these are huge numbers uh for india and you know likewise it sort of opens up the opportunities for uh us to partner with india in furthering most of these projects so uh you know again just highlights significance of the opportunity uh that this presents so uh yeah can we move on please yeah uh yeah so you know uh two key trends that we are seeing in india uh and you know and which is a significant departure from what we were seeing earlier uh in the last 10 to 15 years was uh the focus was more on uh plain vanilla solar wind uh kind of projects but now what we are seeing is uh you know there is a gradual transition towards hybrid projects so we're seeing more and more options coming in for uh some sort of blended solar wind biomass with storage kind of projects and even in some cases uh you know stranded thermal power generation assets so more and more of hybrid assets being uh seen coming in now both promoted by government as well as you know the private sector coming in on its own uh and also we are seeing more demand for round-the-clock supply of uh of ari power so it's not just a supply during the day but you know setting up a significantly larger capacity uh along with storage uh to help the distribution companies manage the intermittency uh of power during this period so you know these are two very clear trends that we are seeing uh in the indian market now uh yeah can we move on please yeah so uh off the projects that we looked at and and this is just 660 projects that we looked at there are many more in the system uh but you know these are quite representative of the whole system so uh what this highlighted was that uh you know uh of the projects that are conceived 23 percent have just been announced uh and you know no further action has been taken and uh very surprisingly 68 which represents the major chunk of the projects is still under some sort of approval or permitting stage you know either it is the ppas are under approval or the project itself uh or the tariff discovered is uh undergoing uh regulatory approval process so uh you know the projects even for the last one year have not seen a significant movement towards construction or completion uh after being announced and just about nine to ten percent has actually reached the stage of construction so this represents uh or reflects a clear fact that you know the projects uh take a lot of time uh to develop even after being announced due to a host of factors which are present in the indian system uh so you know clear areas uh where government can actually provide impetus uh to benefit uh you know the economy as a whole and also achieve its targets of megawatts that or gigawatts that it has set for itself so a huge opportunity here uh but you know the projects are moved slowly and not as fast as we would want them to move so that that's the kind of impression that we got yes please move on uh yeah let's move on yeah so uh you know looking at the grid scale projects that we saw uh you know there are a few distinct areas where we think there is clear opportunity for us to assist india and then by partnership with india so one or two areas clearly are around uh you know helping india promote electrification of most of the fuels that we have so right now you know uh the fuels are still dependent or our chief fuels are still uh diesel or uh you know some sort of uh hybrid of gas etc but you know we want to move towards electrification more and more and for this some sort of r d support is needed in india so you know us can really support uh with some sort of technical assistance uh and some sort of studies uh and you know demonstration of some of the technologies that uh are tested and used in u.s and which can be actually uh deployed in india at a mass scale uh so that is very much needed and you know beginning from that uh we can also look at helping india develop more bankable projects which are round-the-clock projects larger projects uh also hybrid projects uh and you know also uh supporting it uh with financing so you know financing uh is an important element and we we know that uh you know all these projects will require significant financing uh you know almost 86 billion as we saw in the previous slide so there is a need for capital to come in and i think u.s can really support with that uh also uh you know some of the demonstration projects for the newer technologies or more emerging technologies uh around green hydrogen etc india is very keenly looking at this but you know the work done so far is limited uh so again uh you know a u.s india partnership can actually really look at uh managing intermittency of renewable power generation with green hydrogen production uh you know through electrolysis process so any demonstration projects which are available which can further uh sort of uh deployment of these in india so uh significant opportunities here just a few i've highlighted here but you know there's ample opportunity or the space is vacant as of now yes please move on uh the other area uh you know this is the second area apart from grid connected uh renewable energy projects is the distributed renewable energy project so there is a significant interest and impetus of the government almost the tune of 40 to 45 gigawatts in distributed solar almost uh 18 to 20 gigawatts has already been announced uh rest is uh under uh you know sort of contemplation right now and it is happening through various models you know capital investment apex model is one uh resco model is another one where the demand is aggregated and uh not you know the utility or that there are scores which which sort of take the risk of aggregating demand and running this so both the models under consideration uh but again there is a huge scope for uh proliferation of distributed renewable energy generation projects uh we haven't sort of installed more than six gigawatt as of now uh so going forward uh significant opportunity still remains and the time frame set for this is also very ambitious by the indian government uh so we you know any support or in terms of u.s india clean energy partnership will be very welcome so again please move on here you know clearly some areas which are of focus uh is rooftop solar deployment in in huge rural areas and health centers you know these are huge sort of areas where rooftop deployment can be accelerated so some sort of aggregation and technical assistance for that is possible also now the responsibility for promoting rooftop is with the distribution companies in india so and the distribution companies have not been traditionally financially very strong they require financing they require technical support uh so all those uh you know support areas could be uh provided by uh us under the in under this uh partnership uh also you know we can look at uh promoting contactless digital platforms for reducing transaction costs uh and enhancing consumer consumer experience of uh doing solar some to some extent this has happened in india uh but there is a huge uh need for greater technological platforms uh which reduce manual dependence uh on you know the work that is done in india towards approvals uh towards getting applications etc so again you know significant technological inputs are possible in this area the third uh theme that is available in india is under a pm it's directly with the prime minister's office and it's called as a kusum scheme which is actually solarization of agriculture sector basically working with the farmers and solarizing most of the farm supplies of power so again this is a significant area of focus for the government and almost all the indian states are trying to accelerate this uh again the models available are both under capex and opex so you know farmers typically do not have enough financing available to invest in this kind of setup so some sort of aggregation needs to be done uh to actually launch some kind of line of credit uh to farmers which are which are friendly and which can be taken up and which can forward uh the sectors almost about 10 gigawatts of capacities is planned under this uh so you know this needs to be furthered only i mean the capacity that has been uh sort of implemented till now is very very limited under this so huge uh need for acceleration of this uh yeah please move on so here as well uh you know we can look at uh developing more bankable projects uh for optimizing cost under the agro pv uh projects model uh and also uh some sort of dedicated financing or credit guarantee facilities uh on agri uh infrastructure fund to enable farmers to access debt at low cost uh and also setting up uh decentralized renewable energy projects on apex mode so you know this is something which has not happened till now but there is a huge need for it uh going forward yes this brings me to the to the last theme that we have so again you know this is around a solar pv cell module or a lithium ion battery manufacturing uh india has not been uh the front runner in sort of manufacturing cells or modules within the country and probably uh you know we already uh lost out uh on this opportunity but now the opportunity is there for lithium-ion battery manufacturing in india uh but again uh you know uh there was significant investment need for this government has already launched a scheme called production linked incentive where it is providing uh some sort of incentive uh for manufacturing uh of these uh high technology i uh batteries but you know that is the the amount that is uh set aside for that is very limited the investment is still huge that is needed uh so you know uh going forward uh again uh significant uh contribution is possible under the u.s partnership u.s india partnership uh just if yeah please move on just a few uh areas where you know where this is clearly uh imminent is in terms of research and development and demonstration of high efficiency pv modules and acc battery solutions as well as looking at creating alternative supply chains for critical equipment and minerals supporting energy transaction transition in terms of uh say for instance production of polysilicon wafers which india doesn't do at all as of now uh but you know this is something which needs to be done again uh or production of high efficiency electrolyzers for green hydrogen this is some this is a really upcoming area where a lot of discussion is happening uh but uh you know there is no clear pathway on how to move on this uh and also you know some sort of chemical refining of raw material ores uh to produce industry-grade metals for producing lithium or nickel or you know rare earths so this is a really cutting-edge technology area where you know we've hardly seen any investment coming in uh or even you know a buy-in towards a particular technology uh so you know this is a clear area of uh very high-end partnership between us and india yes please move on this is my last slide so you know we did this study about six months back and now we are going to further refine this uh we're going to cover uh some more sectors in detail which were not covered earlier and also expand this to about 1000 projects uh we're going to look at what is the status where have they moved where is the need for additional push and also uh you know where can uh more international partnerships be opened up what are the those areas uh so this is something which is next in line and hopefully we will be completing this work in another three to four months and come back uh with another uh analysis on this so thank you so much once again for giving us this opportunity to present uh happy to have any questions later on kartike as you feel appropriate thanks sameesh um i think you've already started to get some questions uh in the chat that you might be able to respond to directly um i um noticed that there were some questions about things that had been left out um and what have you but um i think there's explanations for that um so as i mentioned before um you know the the purpose of this effort was really to package up what are the shovel ready investment uh green infrastructure projects um and certainly within the context of this particular bilateral uh energy partnership clean energy is a key focus area so the hope is that this particular tool can be won used by investors and and those providing technical assistance uh and governments to be able to uh draw upon uh to further the aims of this particular partnership um but now let me invite um dr andrew light assistant secretary for uh does uh international affairs um to uh give us a little snapshot of um what has just uh happened uh in terms of the revamped u.s india strategic clean energy partnership and and also any reactions you may have uh to this report uh well thank you very much it's a pleasure to be here um i i we had a really great launch of the new strategic clean energy dialogue yesterday um that was uh co-chaired by secretary granholm and mr pre um and i think if uh just to give you a quick overview though people should go to the doe website we have posted the joint statement um so far from the from the uh uh for the for the dialogue that was held yesterday um uh and so you can look at some of the details there i'll just kind of briefly go over a couple items here um but the but to give a little history on this i mean the the united states and india have long had some kind of energy dialogue or or some kind of partnership there going back many administrations republican and democrat it's really been a source of of really inspiring uh bipartisan consensus on the need to cooperate with india in this particularly important area um and it's long been the case that we focused on energy security and energy innovation and across every administration some degree you know dial up dial down depend on how you look at it and the degree of effort but on clean unclean energy so that's kind of always been a mainstay um including especially if you look at you know when secretary when sorry when prime minister modi was elected in the spring of 2014 when the first things he did was he took his 20 the 20 gigawatt solar target that the congress party had and then increased it right multiplied it to 100 gigawatts right off the bat you know and that wasn't in response to what was then what we knew was sort of the emerging architecture of the paris agreement and you know what we've been thinking i was on the climate team at the state department at the time uh you know what we're thinking about in terms of the architecture of in nationally determined contributions this was just unilaterally done and then within um you know i don't know what it was like six seven eight months right it increased that to 175 gigawatts right by 2022 including uh including wind including um small hydro you know biomass and others and so really like right off the bat just for the commitment of the prime minister um was very strong on this issue so there was always something for us to work with um there in the obama administration and going through the trump administration as well you know by then like the prime minister had increased his targets to 450 gigawatts by 2030. again completely outside of the architecture of paris um and and this kind of in independence and incredibly bold thinking was something that all administrations have been able to respond to in in some degree or another now um it is absolutely the case that what we're doing now is we are we are we the the strategic was called the strategic energy dialogue um secretary granholm uh and i were able to negotiate very successfully with our counterparts uh with the ministry of petroleum and natural gas and of the five indian energy ministries the ministry of petroleum natural gas is the lead ministry among the others right for this the right now it's changed over time it used to be the power ministry when i was last in office in the obama administration and now it's uh uh petroleum and natural gas which has the lead but all the the five energy ministries as well as nitty iog and other part the department of science and technology uh cooperate with india on or cooperate as part of our energy dialogue but right off the bat um uh secretary granholm then asked then minister pradhan who was in charge of uh petroleum and natural gas at the time until the recent cabinet reorganization um you know can we change can we actually not only go into the guts of this and kind of think about like what are we going to be doing from now on on something like oil and gas what are we going to be doing in those kind of areas can we change the even the name of it from strategic energy dialogue to strategic clean energy dialogue and he said yes absolutely he was completely uh completely on board with this uh and then as you know in july the there was a shuffle in the cabinet and uh minister puri came in and secretary grant and mr perry had actually not spoken together until day before yesterday until the day before we actually convened the the new strategic clean energy dialogue and you know we we had we had high hopes that there would be a continuation of exactly the kind of the relationship um that that the secretary had with minister pradhan and our we were we were we were so thrilled with their initial interaction very strong just like yes absolutely the future here is on clean energy that's what we need to do um on things like oil and gas we're going to focus on methane abatement as a very important area that we can which will be a cost saving issue for the for for the indian government and and and and there's a straight continuation that was carried through yesterday with once the the sc ed and that so so there's five pillars of the strategic clean energy dialogue power and energy efficiency which will focus mostly on modernizing and strengthening the electricity grid addressing demand growth a greater focus on energy efficiency and conservation super efficient appliances efficient buildings industrial sectors just the kind of thing stuff that you were doing carte when you were you know in these in these buildings as well um renewable energy we're going to continue to support india's development obviously of the big 450 gigawatt target and that's going to be talk about it later if you'd like the real the real because what what we did the the new uh agenda 2030 partnership um for between india and and and the united states on climate and energy was launched at president biden's april summit april climate summit and it's got two big parts of it the energy part which secretary granholm now convenes with her counter her main counterpart her appointed counterpart minister prairie but of course working with the other ministers and then there's the climate and finance part which is convened by secretary kerry and the and the minister of the environment um so two big partner and both of those parts will be working on trying to achieve this 450 gigawatt target which is just massive and is so critical not only to the future of india but the future of the world i mean i mean if india does not achieve its 450 gigawatt target and we look at projections where we're going it it makes it hard to conceive of how we will achieve our long-term targets under the paris agreement in terms of temperature stabilization so this is essential an essential and very high priority for this government given our belief that we're facing an existential crisis right now with harm right now that needs to be addressed um a third pillar is on it's been returned responsible oil and gas uh oil and gas which will focus on reducing consumption of high polluting fuels and as i said before methane abatement fourth pillar on sustainable growth which is between niti iog and usaid continuing work that they've been doing again for over a decade on low carbon pathways through energy data and management development of low-carbon technologies and just transition in the coal sector and then finally emerging fuels which is a new pillar we're so excited about this really was a very high priority of minister curry um to focus on bioenergy hydrogen waste to energy and facilitate decarbonization and hard to abate sectors um and so that's where we're going to have part of our conversation with industrial decarbonization which is a gigantic future for india the other thing we talked about yesterday which is not formally part of the scdd but is but is part of the sort of the family there is of course our signature pace r partnership to advance clean energy research which is you know we contribute money to u.s institutions india contributes an equal amount of money to indian institutions to collaborate on r d we've had amazing work with them in the past on solar you know on building efficiency and uh we're really going to focus there on a lot of new areas including on ccs joint research on ccs which is extremely exciting and then also finally um you know had a report out on our nuclear uh uh working group there um and and so which is again not formally part of the sc ed but again reports into it and so we all know kind of know where that will go with respect to the future of the energy mix so very exciting and that's in a nutshell what we launched yesterday and um on monday secretary kerry will do the formal launch of his half right of the overall 2030 partnership which is the climate action and finance mobilization track or c-a-f-m doesn't have an acronym that really rolls off the tongue so we can say sked half him i guess um and so secretary kerry will be meeting uh there and then launch formally launching that on the on the 13th in delhi deputy secretary of energy dave turk will also be on that meeting which we're very excited which again signals just this is a unified effort right it is climate and energy together which is exactly the formulation that we had um uh when uh when we were we were in government in the obama administration it was great to see a resumption of that unified hole thanks andrew that's um that's really interesting i'm glad you flagged um secretary kerry's upcoming visit um let me just take a step back and also say you know the gargantuan target that the government of india has 450 gigawatts of renewable energy is is quite important it's staggering in its amount and i would say that it having this mandate almost propels uh arguably india's ministry of nunnable energy uh to become one of the most important and significant government agencies in the world not just for india but for the rest of the world in trying to help achieve that target now there is this getting renewable energy out and deployed element of this partnership and then there's also this finance bit that you touched on that will be launched on monday can you um how do you envision the climate action and finance mobilization track um as well as the scep working together under this agenda 2030 partnership so the i think the glue that holds these two things together is the 450 gigawatt target i i think that i mean i mean i mean i think that's it because it's like that clearly overlaps especially when you've got the finance part of the of the of the of the track happening in um happening in um and with the with the climate the climate mobilization track um um and we've had we've had these pieces before right we had like the when i was in the obama administration i i was the us director of the you know the joint working group for combating climate change that was the climate part and then we had the energy dialogue which was run out of this office that i'm sitting in now which i didn't expect i would someday be late but but but you know so so you know david sandalow and john l kind then we're sort of overseeing that that process uh um and and of course led by you know secretary a rich person and secretary moniz um and and we we and then there was you know finance discussions which were a lot of it driven out of state energy bureau in fact and and and and that was sort of floating kind of somewhere in between so it's really kind of harmonize this so we've got the the the clean energy dialogue and the climate action finance mobilization track right but to get to 450 you've got to merge these things together especially the energy and the finance parts and it's everything from r d to deployment right and attracting the investment to make it possible and you look at sort of so india is about 100 gigawatts now of renewables which is fantastic and i don't know about i don't know can't speak for you but like when when i first heard in 2014 that the the modi was taking just the solar target to 100 gigs right by 2022 i was like well a hundred's a nice round number you know i mean like that sounds like a kind of a target setting exercise that you would do in any government around the world a hundred you know like not 98.5 but a hundred um yeah you know and and and and and some of us were quite skeptical but you know they're the it's not going to be at all 100 of solar but all in yeah they're going to get there and that's fine and especially if you look at where india was in 2014 this is an amazing amount of progress but to get to 450 by 2030 right you're talking about around 40 gigs a year that have to be onboarded between now and then that's five times faster than what we've seen so far which has been extraordinary and we estimate that's 500 billion dollars more or less right of investment that needs to go into india in order to make that happen so there is no work universe where these two things the agenda does not really one whole the agenda 23 partnership is not one whole that works together and the thing that sort of really that where we are most excited is it's not just achieving those targets on the electricity side the energy side it is also the expansion in the capacity that you see in india for something i mentioned before large-scale demonstration projects for industrial decarbonization so that's one of the things that we in our documents going back to the if you go back and look at the stuff that we released in april at the climate at the climate summit one of the things we talked about there is large-scale industrial decarbonization pilot projects in decarbonized steel using hydrogen ccs you mean this is the thing that the problems we're going to be working through and and i think it's something india can take on part of that will will meet the definition of sort of onboarding power for the existing 2030 target but part of it will be potentially allowing the indian government if they choose to take on to again lead the world with similarly ambitious industrial decarb targets and and and and think about it i mean if india becomes let's say it's a scenario because this is i'm not this is not not making policy without my colleagues from the indian government here right but but but for example hypothetically let's say we could imagine large-scale demonstration projects in green steel production using green hydrogen right or you know hydrogen from gas with ccs or something like that and that's steel and then you sort of you kind of imagine right what the how the world changes if india becomes the hub of production of green decarbonized steel which meets a global demand which is generated by the climate targets and the net zero targets of all the just just take the developed countries without even getting into the big developing countries developed countries are all of one voice now we're all committed to net zero by 2050. we're going to have to decarbonize our hard to obey sectors we're going to supply right but it's hard to abate sectors if indy becomes a hub for that and for example they are they're purchasing green hydrogen from the united states where we're committed to producing one dollar per kilo of hydrogen by 2030 right that's the first shot that's being done in this building right now on hydrogen we do that imagine that supply chain that that is created and imagine how that just transforms the economy now to make demonstration like projects like that which are so big you're actually just calling them demonstration like is a little weird to me because i think they're actually it just becomes the industry at some point you know um that right is something you have to again you have to marry what secretary kerry's process is and secretary grant homes processes and put them together that can't be done by one half alone yeah and you know it's interesting you know the prime minister uh also announced in the independence day speech this year that india will become a green hydrogen hub and there was a whole portal launched a hydrogen portal for india and you know even the earth's shot uh efforts of doe uh could be um you know in parallel looked at by the announcement of mr ambani of reliance uh who also would like to get uh the per kilogram cost of green hydrogen down to uh some very low amounts um so i think there's certainly a scope for a lot of industry collaboration and i'm glad to see that the partnership to advance clean energy research is still happening and that there is a new hydrogen task force that is a part of this bilateral energy collaboration a couple of things jumped out to me and so i have two two remaining questions for you that i think are really important one is if we're dealing with engagement with india and particularly in india's sort of who controls the flow of electrons you know central government matters in terms of uh managing uh and setting bold beautiful visions uh but state governments are incredibly important in delivery on that and i know the united states and many countries and their bilateral energy partnerships with india have some state level engagement um now uh i think a month or so ago we had the first sort of formalized platform for state to state collaboration on clean energy uh between the united states and india by uh the mlu signing that secretary granholm and minister cooper were at between the national association of state energy officials uh in the us and the association of renewable energy agencies of states um which is great um i'm just curious as to what what how can states what can they sort of do to feed into this process and what scope do you see for u.s states uh in which u.s states could possibly be brought into this conversation as potential partners as part of the u.s toolkit to engage with india's energy transition if i might ask that yeah well look i i i was i was i would i was there with the secretary when she was witnessing that signing between um nazio and arias it's fantastic to see that happen um also president i should say we're minister cuba and secretary chateau verde were there as well and and and the and the and and you know no one more than my boss secretary granholm better appreciates the critical role right and the states can play in this as a former governor um of michigan and so she was actually thrilled to see that that signing and to see that work go through um and i have to say you know one one of the things that was that was really very heartening to see over the last four years in the united states was the strengthening of state the coordination of state and and uh city and regional action on on energy and climate change of necessity right and and it was great we saw the launch of the us climate alliance and the expansion of you know the the mayor's kind of process and on and on and on and you know you know we are still in right campaign and everything is really great so that's better and more coordinated than it's ever been in the united states we cannot let that fall off the table now and the federal government just step in and say oh we're going to handle it now that would be ridiculous and so and so so what we we actually have to do and the united states can't mean it's domestic targets let alone what we'd like to do with other countries unless we've got the states moving with us right as these engines of creativity and these engines right of ambition and so we know right california for example is big enough uh and you know strong enough and has enough going on there that they've had a very good track record of international collaboration um and in fact uh you know i'm very happy that my one of my former bosses kate gordon who used to run climate action for the governor of california is now a senior advisor here in the department of energy um for secretary granholm um mostly working on our jobs our jobs portfolio and and the and the the the extraordinary thing there is is is that i think that we are kind of going to see in the united states a much tighter you know continuation of that thrust and now we got to find other states gonna we can help them develop the same similar capacity it's hard it's hard to sort of carve out time in a governor's schedule or the staff schedule or resources right in states to do this kind of work and that's where things like the nazi res collaboration is going to work really well and i think the same thing is true in india i mean we are you know we know that um you know it is that the the indian states are often like the the leaders of this i mean prime minister modi himself right was leading the way in gujarat well before he was prime minister for creating the first you know the first you know indian state uh department of climate change um you know was a leader in solar a leader in climate adaptation the agricultural areas especially with respect to water tables it goes again again so there's just this wealth of knowledge what we need to do now between delhi and washington frankly is to figure out how to empower right sub-national actors or non-federal actors but at the same time get out of the way how is it that we that we unintentionally primarily throw up roadblocks for them to get together and actually work together we have to all know what each other is doing but i just think there's that's one of the things there and one of the last things that i did at the world resources institute before i took this job um i was working on the the research program for the us india track 2 dialogue which i helped to start you know over a decade ago at the center for american progress with john podesta and we were in fact started to work on that problem um how do you streamline and make these these things possible and i think we can do it yeah well you know and then again the the last question i really have is again relates a little bit to states but to what i saw in this joint statement that was quite eye-popping and exciting um which is you know there's a lot of talk and pressure on india to declare a net zero target i don't know if it'll happen um i'm not going to try and uh presume that it may but there are certainly indian states that are kind of leading the charge in terms of driving a decarbonization agenda just because of the success of renewables including uh you know states like gujarat and chattisgarh and karnataka and maharashtra all sort of announcing no new thermal power plants because of just where we are in terms of coal versus renewables and all of that sort of throws up some really interesting questions on the just transition i was quite surprised and and pleasantly so to see in the joint statement um you know that one of the areas for collaboration is ensuring a just energy transition and you know identify opportunities for job creation and skills building for both countries um particularly for communities most impacted to ensure that the transition is just now so so what does that look like i mean this is um it's exciting to see um i think there are probably eyes and ears on both in both countries that are interested in this what kinds of parties and partners can be part of this kind of effort well let me let me say something it's a great question let me see something at the top which is which highlights the importance of this issue because why is it that we're seeing so much activity and so much enthusiasm whether it's part of the cop process or not of enhancing ambition right and around the world it's because of the climate crisis it speaks also it's being driven by the employment opportunity i mean there are millions and millions and millions of jobs that can be created just out of the u.s india part of our cooperation let alone the rest of the world the you know the international finance corporation estimated you just take the top dozen or so targets of developing countries originally from paris from 2015 and if every those just those dozen countries do what they say they're going to do by 2030 it's a 42 it's a sorry 23 trillion dollar investment opportunity in the world india is going to be a absolute focus of this investment opportunity that drives the capital markets that gets investors over whatever anxieties they might have of new markets and renewable energy and stuff like that it drives internal reform and it gets us more money in which produces jobs but those jobs we need to see a transition because as we dial up jobs in renewable energy and we change our energy mix you know we want to we want to absolutely invest in carbon capture and sequestration so we can we can continue to produce electrons from you know uh cleaner sources of of burning of fossil fuels but at the same time we know that these these are things are going to change so in the united states we have the american jobs and energy manufacturing act of 2021 um which is going to be deploying billions of dollars right to sort of support communities in transition and the fact of the matter is is that if we look around the world of countries where we need to where we can learn something and we're in the same boat with just transition it's not europe it's not western europe at least where they're further ahead in this process than we are it is countries like india it is country it's the countries of eastern europe it's the countries which are you know kind of more like just getting into the transition the jobs there and so what we need to do and is to learn from each this is a place where india and the united states can absolutely learn from each other and go through the transition at the same time and and share resources share the resources of knowledge on that we have a tradition in both countries of empowering labor communities and we need to accelerate that and strengthen it so that when we make when we take advantage of this enormous job creating uh opportunity we do it in such a way that no community is left behind and i think that's a commitment of the indian government it's a commitment of the united states government it's something that the two leaders completely agree upon if you look at prime ministers modi's comments he was the third main speaker uh at the at the president biden's april summit it's all about the opportunity and it's all about doing it in a way that does lift the tide of all people and so that's things where for example dialogues between colon coal india limited and u.s counterparts have to be facilitated where we are getting again the labor communities together where they can learn from each other and everything from how do you engage with this issue to retraining skills you know how do you maintain the social safety net for retiring workers in in these areas it's a full agenda but it's an incredibly exciting one yeah i would i mean listen this topic i think throws open the opportunity to get so many different kinds of new stakeholders engaged i mean we're talking about department of labor potentially you know and folks that really design skilling and training programs um and thinking through transition of entire communities and what is really exciting as you said is that you know this is happening in real time and it's happening in real time in so many parts of the world that it's a real it's a two-way street there's a lot to learn from each other and i think with india frankly there's a there's a lot of two-way streets just because it's uh such an exciting electricity market um that's uh you know discovering incredible new lows and in terms of tariffs of renewable energy pricing and how projects are structured and also a key partner on the joint r d side of things um so clearly the partnership continues to evolve to match and meet this sort of energy transition moment i'm i'm mindful of the time and i know that you had a hard stop um so i want to take a moment to thank you for making the time to explain to us uh you know what's happening in this uh in the strategic clean energy partnership that was launched certainly wish you all uh success and we'll continue to root for this bilateral partnership um and and we'll uh find another time to engage with our colleagues from the government of india who i understand are uh have been sort of quietly uh busy um with a meeting with the minister so that is why they were not able to participate today but clearly you've had a very successful launch for the uh cep and the dialogue is continuing including next week exactly it's in real time it's in real time can i say briefly say thank you so much for bringing here and that was an absolutely fabulous report and i can't wait to dig into it because it is a guidepost for what we want to do and i think nicos and the whole team at csis who are such great partners on the india work on the just transition work we had we did a fantastic uh side event uh at the april summit with csis and we just look forward to working with with you guys we're we have an incredible team there and i know we're gonna we're gonna see great things moving forward thanks andrew nicos i'm gonna hand it back to you i think just to say thank you so much andrew thank you cardikeya thank you everyone for joining apologies for our scheduling challenges but as kind of said there'll be more opportunities in the futures in the future thank you so much for joining have a good day [Music] you

Channel: Center for Strategic & International Studies

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Keywords: Center for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS, bipartisan, policy, foreign relations, national security, think tank, politics

Id: QIYDkcMzigg

Length: 52min 40sec (3160 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 10 2021