The Hindu : Kyoto protocol key to dealing with climatic change: U.K. envoy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 05, 2003

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Kyoto protocol key to dealing with climatic change: U.K. envoy

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI AUG. 4. The British High Commissioner to India, Rob Young, today said the United Kingdom was committed to reducing greenhouse gas emission and it believed that the Kyoto Protocol and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate were the vital steps in dealing with climatic change.

Inaugurating the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership in South Asia consultation meet here, Sir Young said his country's target was that 10 per cent of its electricity sales would come from renewable energy sources by 2010.

But, more was to be done if we were to tackle the problem effectively, and the U.K. had committed itself to achieving a 60 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, he said.

"South Asia is faced with a challenge of how to meet economic development needs at a time of increased global environment stress. Energy is one of the prime movers of economic developments, and the unreliability of present power systems is already hampering industry's efficiency across the sub-continent and in the longer term energy shortages may significantly stunt the region's economic growth," he said.

Suggesting that renewable energy and energy efficiency were key to addressing the social, economic and environmental challenges in achieving sustainable development, Sir Young said this could improve energy security by reducing dependence on imported fuel, developing local sources, and diversifying energy portfolios and suppliers. In particular, distributed energy generation and sustainable renewable systems could enable more equitable access to energy services and create new job opportunities, especially in the rural areas.

Quoting a report by the Imperial College Centre for Energy Policy and Technology, he said it had concluded that it was technologically and economically feasible for the world to move to a low carbon emissions path. It is estimated that solar energy alone could meet world energy demand using less than one per cent of land currently used for agriculture and that one-half of future emissions could be eliminated through improved energy efficiency.

On the Indian scenario, Sir Young said India faced a near-doubling of energy demand over the next 30 years and domestic supply would be unlikely to match this demand. "Like many countries around the world, many States in India are currently in the process of power sector reforms. The reform process provides new opportunities for policymakers to make a significant shift towards sustainable energy sources.

But, at the same time, it presents them with some new and complex challenges," he said, while advocating the need for creating a level-playing field for small-scale renewable and energy efficiency technologies by regulating frameworks, which balance social and environmental objectives with the drive for economic efficiency, while highlighting the role the voluntary bodies and commercial partners could play in this.

Spelling out the options, which many countries in the region were already exploiting, he said hydro and wind power had great potential. India currently had an installed capacity of generating 1,700 MW of power from wind energy, which put it fifth in the world.

Accelerating energy efficiency improvements and deployment of sustainable renewable energy resulted in significantly lower environmental pollution, he said.

The meet had been organised in collaboration with the Tata Energy and Research Institute.

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