Climate action: Our energy transition need not follow preset pathways
Siemens, one of the world’s biggest wind turbine makers, points out that “energy bills will have to keep rising to pay for the green transition." (bit.ly/48qpYmx) A recent Bloomberg article (bloom.bg/3T60wyq) noted, “Affordable power is a key precondition for industrial competitiveness, and even before the end of Russian gas supplies, Germany had some of the highest electricity costs in Europe. Failure to stabilize the situation could transform a trickle of manufacturers heading elsewhere into a stampede." The article goes on to cite the OECD that “no major industrialized economy has ever had the very basis of its competitiveness and resilience so systematically challenged by changing social, environmental and regulatory pressures." In surveys, energy security and costs are cited as the major reasons for German businesses to move abroad. It is often claimed that the shift to renewables makes countries more energy secure, but most clean energy supply chains are dominated by China (tinyurl.com/y59rke62), leaving future green energy heavily dependent on one supplier.
And prioritizing renewables will have real environmental impacts. Renewables take up much more land(tinyurl.com/2c6fc9x4), which could have been used for many other purposes, including for nature. India, in particular, has the lowest land mass given its population among members of the G20.
In other words, it has the highest population density in the G20. Land is a very scarce resource in India and it has to be judiciously applied. The trade-offs have to be thought out.
Read more on livemint.com
