When President Pratibha Patil visited the UK recently, one of the outcomes was the decision to undertake a joint study with the British government on how to overcome barriers to clean technology transfer from industrialised countries to developing countries.
In fact, the broad contours have been already spelt out by a report titled Capturing Indias Carbon: The UK’s role in delivering low-carbon technology to India, which was released recently by Christian Aid, a development organisation.
Summing up the context for India, it says that India and other developing countries need an enabling environment to adopt clean technologies. These include demonstration and implementation of clean technologies by industrialised countries, technology training and deployment to enable developing countries to take decisions in their own interest and not according to transferers demands, and financial support from rich countries.
Its to be seen how the proposed bilateral study comes up with answers to these issues. Its important particularly from the UK’s end because the country has been looking at Indias low-carbon and environmental goods and services (LCEGS) for some time now. The market value of LCEGS sector in India has been estimated at 191 billion, which is 6.3% of the 3,046-billion global market, according to a British government report. Low Carbon and Environmental Goods and Services: An Industry Analysis, which was prepared by BERR (Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, UK) and Innovas, a research consultancy.
At the same time, the UK’s share of the global market is 3.5% or 1,564 billion. India is its fifth largest export market. The UK’s exports to India in the sector stand at Pound 0.399 billion. It comprises alternative fuels (0.087 billion), wind (0.041 billion), water and wastewater treatment (0.041 billion) and solar PV (0.037 billion). The report predicts a 45% growth in the sector in the near future, mostly in low-carbon renewables. The UK sees potential particularly in China and India. The reasons are obvious. The two developing countries are growing fast, they lag the UK in technology use and sector development. Besides, these countries have less competitive markets than developed countries, says the report.
With India unfolding its National Action Plan on Climate Change, which seeks to promote low-carbon growth, the opportunities for collaboration and technology transfer are only going to increase.
The environmental goods & services sector has been expanded to include renewable energy technologies like hydro, wave and tidal power, geothermal, wind and biomass, and emerging low-carbon activities like reduced emissions from within the transport and construction sectors, nuclear energy, energy management, carbon capture & storage, and carbon finance in addition to solutions to air, noise and marine pollution, land and water contamination, environmental consultancy, waste management and recycling.
Source: The Financial Express
Publiahed on 16 November 2009