New Delhi: The Union Minister for Power, Manohar Lal Khattar, and the German Federal Environment Minister, Carsten Schneider, discussed energy security, electrification, low carbon development, carbon markets and the diversification of supply chains at a bilateral meeting in New Delhi on Wednesday. The meeting was held to review and further strengthen cooperation between the two countries in the energy sector, the government said.
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Schneider is Germany's Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Climate Protection and Nuclear Safety. Both sides exchanged views on ongoing initiatives and explored ways to deepen collaboration in those areas, according to the statement, which placed the meeting against a relationship that has recently marked 75 years of diplomatic relations and 25 years of Strategic Partnership.
The two ministers agreed that energy security, low carbon development and carbon markets are deeply interlinked, the statement said, and that India-Germany cooperation across all three can be mutually reinforcing. They reaffirmed a shared commitment to a secure, affordable and sustainable energy future, and said they looked forward to continued engagement in the months ahead.
Of the areas listed, carbon markets are the one that carries a fixed date for Germany. The European Union (EU) adopted its 2040 climate target in March, setting a legally binding cut of 90 percent in net greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels. Of that, 85 percentage points must be delivered by cuts inside the bloc. The remaining 5 percent can be met with high-quality international carbon credits bought from outside it, and only from 2036 onwards.
Germany comes under that ceiling as a member state. How the allowance is apportioned across member states and sectors has not been settled. The European Commission has said the flexibility will be reflected in the post-2030 sectoral legislation still to be designed.
India's position on the supply side rests primarily on the fact that it has built the world's third-largest installed renewable energy capacity. Non-fossil sources accounted for 300.50 GW of installed electricity generation capacity as of July 31, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy said in August. That is more than 54 percent of a total installed capacity of 552 GW, and about 60 percent of the 500 GW of non-fossil capacity the country has targeted for 2030. Solar accounts for 164.59 GW of it and wind for 58.14 GW.
A green energy base of that size is what places India among the countries positioned to supply a market opening in Europe from 2036.
What India will trade, and on what terms, is governed separately. The National Designated Authority for the Implementation of the Paris Agreement (NDAIAPA), constituted under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, decides which activities may generate credits for transfer abroad. The ministry announced the first such list on February 17, 2023, and it now covers both the Article 6.2 and Article 6.4 routes. That list is built around emerging technologies, such as renewable energy with storage, solar thermal power, offshore wind, green hydrogen, green ammonia, and carbon capture, utilisation and storage among them. Interestingly, conventional solar photovoltaic and onshore wind, which make up the bulk of the installed base, do not appear on it.
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The statement described the meeting as reinforcing momentum in India-Germany energy cooperation, building on decades of partnership.