Context:
Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and U.S. Secretary of Energy co-chaired a virtual Ministerial meeting and launched the revamped U.S.-India Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP).
Relevance:
GS-II: International Relations (Important Foreign Policies and Agreements affecting India’s interests)
Dimensions of the Article:
- Highlights of the India U.S. meeting on Emerging Fuels
Highlights of the India U.S. meeting on Emerging Fuels
- In the meeting, both the sides reviewed progress & major accomplishments and prioritized new areas for cooperation across several pillars.
- Indian side noted that, this revamped clean energy partnership will intensify the efforts to take advantage of complementarities that exists between both the countries.
- On the occasion, a new India-US Task Force on Biofuels was also announced in order to build the scope of work on cooperation in biofuels sector.
US-India Agenda 2030 Partnership
- The aim is to create stronger bilateral cooperation on actions in the current decade to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
- The Partnership will proceed along two main tracks: the Strategic Clean Energy Partnership and the Climate Action and Finance Mobilization Dialogue.
- India elevated the India-US energy dialogue to a strategic energy partnership in 2018.
Revamped Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP)
- Addition of a fifth Pillar on Emerging Fuels (cleaner energy fuels).
- With this, the SCEP inter-governmental engagement now spreads across five pillars of cooperation – Power and Energy Efficiency, Responsible Oil and Gas, Renewable Energy, Sustainable Growth and Emerging Fuels.
- Support India in achieving its goal of installing 450GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030.
- A new India-U.S. Task Force on Biofuels was also announced.
Reviewed India-US Civil Nuclear Energy Cooperation
- The Indo-US nuclear cooperation agreement was signed in 2008.
- A major aspect of the Deal was that the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) gave a special waiver to India that enabled it to sign cooperation agreements with a dozen countries.
Transformation of the Gas Task Force
- It will be the India-US Low Emissions Gas Task Force.
- It will focus on addressing India’s natural gas policy, technology, and regulatory barriers by promoting efficient and market-driven solutions aimed at meeting India’s growing energy demand, and greenhouse gas emission reduction targets
Institutionalism of India Energy Modeling Forum
- Six Task Forces were constituted for carrying out research and modelling in different areas.
- There will be deliberations on Energy Data Management, Low Carbon Technologies and Just Transition in the Coal Sector.
Expanded the Scope of (PACE)-R Initiative
- Agreed to include smart grid and grid storage as part of the second phase of the Partnership to Advance Clean Energy (PACE)-R initiative anchored on the Indian side by the Department of Science & Technology.
-Source: The Hindu
