Sustainable and Secure Future

As the global community once again converges at the Conference of the Parties (COP), the pivotal role of carbon markets in achieving the Paris Agreement's ambitious goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius takes center stage.

As the climate crisis intensifies, two terms are in sharp focus: adaptation and ‘loss and damage’ (L&D).

Adaptation is the proactive response to climate change, the art of survival using which communities and countries make deliberate choices to prepare for and cope with climate-related challenges.

As India dons the role of a solar superpower, a crucial hurdle in the country’s journey to self-reliance in this sector is the availability of the key raw material—polysilicon. It is a semiconductor that helps convert photons to electricity, thereby forming the brick of solar cells. The production of polysilicon—an energy-intensive material—requires copious amounts of high-quality silicon. While silicon is abundantly found in India and the rest of the world, competition for the mineral is extremely high.

So far in this series, we discussed different aspects of India’s solar PV sector, including taxation, policies, and the journey towards sustainability. In this concluding piece, we focus on popular technologies, innovations, challenges, and opportunities.

India’s solar photovoltaics (PV) market is rapidly growing. However, to reach the ambitious goal of 500 GW of renewable energy by 2030, there is a pressing need to increase installed capacity and generation targets. With only around 62 GW of installed solar capacity achieved by the end of 2022, India fell short of its 100 GW target for the year. Favourable policies, financial support, technological advancements, and a competitive market are essential for further advancing the growth of India’s solar PV sector.

In the previous article, we discussed the gaps in key areas that hamper the sustained growth of India’s solar PV market. In this article, we shift our focus to two critical aspects that are influencing the sector - ALMM and BCD.

Until a few years ago, working on biofuels called for constant justification in the face of electric vehicles (EVs) taking over the world. Today, while there is no doubt that EV adoption has amplified over the years, there is growing awareness of the fact that no decarbonisation strategy is trade-off-free. For instance, for a transition to EVs, existing internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and the supporting infrastructure need to be replaced entirely, which is capital intensive.

Any development programme can foster climate adaptation and mitigation benefits; it must also, however, feature self-reflection and system assessments. The renowned ecologist C.S. Holling, who brought resilient thinking to the forefront of socio-ecological studies, asserted that systems must evolve while they build resilience. If the baseline system itself is fundamentally unjust and unsustainable, then evolving to a new system is preferable to belatedly attempting to add resilience.

The world is witnessing the increasing impacts of climate change at an alarming rate. Wildfires, floods, cyclones, and heatwaves have become uncomfortably common today. Current research in climate sciences tells us that even if we were to completely stop producing greenhouse gases today, we would still face the detrimental impacts of climate change due to historical emissions. Additionally, the impacts of climate change are not felt in isolation.