A Policy Viewpoint From India and Pakistan Regarding Future Global Energy Policies

Partha P. Choudhury Leo Flores

MLINS 6361 / INST 4361 Global Energy

Dr. Hyland

November 29th, 2012

Going by the results of Team 3s Project 1 and 2 research papers, the assumption that the countries of India and Pakistan are willing and able to contribute to proposition to the rest of the world a sustainable energy policy that will carry on into the future can be answered with an affirmative yes. In retrospect, the Indian government has allocated much human and investment capital into finding alternative non-fossil based fuels that are renewables that it wants to utilize within the near proximate future. As India is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocols and chides other countries for not being compliant with industry standards to procure more environmental stewardship and greener industry, one must keep in mind that India, as scurrilous as it is towards staking a claim for itself among its global compatriots, wants to play an active part in heralding in a more sustainable future. But one must also keep in mind that India has a lions share of pollution within the confines of its own borders, and the ready availability of coal at its disposal is tempting enough to the national government to be dismissive of other nations pollution while engaging in a bit of hypocrisy themselves. But with the Indian attitude towards attaining recognition being the motif for its recent economic prowess, the Indian government has and will continue to subsidize alternate fuels based upon the very notion of inclusion to the rest of the developed world, and that is the sort of glasnost of its markets, therein making it attractive to Western and foreign investment. As such, renewables already account for 12.09% of Indias domestic energy resources. Pakistan, on the other hand, granted with a huge surplus of natural gas, cannot shake itself from the issue of fossil fuels. Within the state charter and Constitution of Pakistan, much of the energy resources are nationalized. Also to add to the mix, theres not too much established research for the renewables market in Pakistan, and that lends itself to the year 2050. One can only hope that Pakistani overtures to the Indian government in the form of peace and

commerce will extend to regional cooperation in South Asia, setting the pace for possible talks of renewables. To do that, Pakistan has a reckoning at hand, and must provide at least a modicum of security within its borders to shy away from the phenomenon of foreign capital depreciating in the country to the tune of 67% as of 2011. The late US Ambassador and Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke attested to the genuine nature with which Pakistan has lent its military to aid in the War Against Terror, and as incentive, had told the Pakistanis quite openly that the US would help the national government address the energy deficit that has plagued the country. For these things to happen, Pakistan must make it a point to reinforce the rule of law and order within its borders. Because both India and Pakistan can come to the table and resolve their differences, Team 3 believes that this fact can become a mainstay for regional cooperation in the Indian subcontinent and will bolster the case for the rest of the worlds energy utilization. Team 3 believes that with enough understanding of the issues and not every aspect of planet Earth being succumb to the profit margin, the advocacy of renewables will be as the new fuel capacity for the world in the near future. Seeing that India and Pakistan occupy the planet with the rest of the world, Team 3 advocates for total global compliancy in this effort and will not singlehandedly pursue this effort alone. For maximum sustainability beyond 2050, the Team 3 world energy goal needs global cooperation, subsidization and research into renewables, to ensure adequate supply and demand of renewables, utilize renewables in such a way that they can be just as effective as fossil fuels without the same degree of pollution, making renewables affordable, to make surplus profits in the markets by way of financial incentives and the repudiation of fossil fuels in a way that wont hinder global markets too drastically, however which comes in the form of alternate capital flooding into the market to fill the vacuum where petrodollars used to be.

Taking a look outside the periphery of the Indian subcontinent to countries in the Middle East and China, theres not been much collusion among peers to establish this sort of trend given the symbiotic nature of the oil and gas trade from the Middle East extending its way into an economic powerhouse such as China. That could serve as a hindrance to the proposition by Team 3. Within the scope of geography with both the Middle East and China being so close and their disassociation with any real introspection into cleaner renewables, Team 3 will take a gambit and see that the push towards cleaner yet lucrative energy is something that is a preoccupation for the rest of the world. And with Peak Oil Theory, ecological disasters occurring throughout various locales in the world, and often times the necessity to declare wars based upon replenishing oil reserves, these constraints are a bit outmoded and wont fit into the restructuring of the world that countries like India and Pakistan will have it do. To ensure future viability of this mindset, Team 3 will embark the route of Option 3 in tandem with the Team 3 world energy goal. From the viewpoint of the outside observer quizzically saying that this is all well and good, but what can actually bind the world as an aggregate whole into making something like Team 3s world energy goal a decree by fiat? The answer to that is based upon organizations that the countries of India and Pakistan are tied into can make business as usual halt to a standstill when results arent being materialized. With world opinion speaking unilaterally as one voice and the ready onrush of people who can view environmental disasters for themselves, whove got intellects to see the logic of what Team 3 is propositioning in terms of commerce and trade, supply and demand, and overall what can maintain a understanding of peace among neighbors, is what is being conveyed to others. It is not only in India and Pakistans interests to have it so, but seeing that globalization can no longer be retracted and is here to stay involves

equitably coming to an accord about these matters. Warfare is the only means that Team 3 finds to be a contradictory stance since the idealism of global cooperation is in fact a sublime pursuit in itself, leaving a notion such as military expedition to bring about something good for future posterities as something that has run its course. Institutions are the new vehicles of change, however Team 3 is not positing that a country must lose its sovereignty over its own territory to have a part in the benefits of inclusion in institutions. But what needs to happen is a moment of realization that current trends cannot continue. By doing so, these institutions must make certain rules mandatory, enforce penalties and sanctions, and make renewable energy viability a chief bedrock among the governing principles of any nation, especially nations in the global south which feel environmental and ecological disasters to a brunt thats not fully appreciated in the 1st world. Emblematic of this, India and Pakistan are the perfect countries for these changes. Both governments chumminess towards the US ensures regional cooperation. And with these nations looking for the best possible options that are self-serving to their own economies, the transition from developing to becoming the projected 4th largest economy in the world in 2050 leaves a country such as India with enough capital (human, technological and financial) to serve as a testcase for what being authentic to your own societal mores and yet aspiring to achieve can do. India and Pakistan can engage in diplomatic endeavors of their own, engage in foreign direct investment in other locales of the world in a symbiotic fashion, proposition to other nations that with India having subsidies into renewable energy can produce profitability, ensure foreign aid to host nations, and build constructive relationships based upon Team 3s institutional endeavors to guarantee that host nations will be receptive and the spirit of goodwill lends itself to preserving and healing the world. With India and Pakistan both being countries with energy deficits, the

future for ready availability of alternative renewables is an incentive for each country. And this is something that the India, with the worlds 5th largest wind power generation, forays into geothermal energy and solar energy, can find to be lucrative in the future for years ahead. Chances are that Pakistan as well will follow suit.