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7. India's Perspectives on Energy Security
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Chapter
- Additional Information
7 IndIa’s PersPectIves on energy securIty Ligia Noronha It is evident that the years since the new millennium have seen a profound transformation of the global and Asian security environment. Resource needs, and in particular, energy, have been key drivers of this change.This reactivation of resource interests in international affairs is due to their being so central to achieving economic dynamism and successful global engagement, which have become the defining parameters of power and influence in a post-Cold War era. Energy has, as a result, risen to the top of national policy agendas and security debates. Nations are adopting positions and making choices both based on their assessments of the room to manoeuvre they have, as well as their perception of political and economic vulnerability in the international context. Perceptions of threats of embargoes, supply disruptions, and sanctions lead to more statist responses, resulting in bilateral and regional alliances; while those less prone to such perceptions adopt more market-oriented strategies to secure energy/minerals for the economy.1 Most of this concern has been around oil as this is still very central to the energy mix of nations. As oil and some of the other resources key to economic growth are concentrated in a few countries, and as demand has been rising sharply, strategic analysts have been speaking of possible resource wars as the new landscape of global conflict.2 Others suggest that “Nothing better illustrates the dangers of resource wars than the emerging strategic landscape in Asia, where high economic growth rates have fuelled concerns 111 112 Ligia Noronha and competition over raw materials and energy resources.3 The debate around energy currently has the following manifestations, which suggest an increased “securitization”: 1. “Availability” and “affordability”, which were the main characteristics of the quest for energy security earlier, have now hardened into one for “secure” energy resources. 2. Energy independence is becoming very important to nations and, increasingly, nations are coming to design policies by which there is less dependence on foreign sources. 3. Strategies pursued to secure energy — equity investments, bilateral deals and new energy ties, investments in nuclear energy — create regional and global concerns about implications of such ties and relations. 4. Energy choices and strategies are increasingly getting caught up in larger foreign and trade policy considerations; they often reveal a zero sum thinking and therein lie possibilities for conflict. This chapter focuses on India’s sources of energy insecurity, the external room to manoeuvre that India has, and its energy securing strategies that have international implications. IndIa’s room to manoeuvre India is at a particular point in its history when it has a great opportunity to pull its population out of poverty, a key requirement of which is the availability of energy to many of its people who are either unserved or underserved. India’s Integrated Energy Policy 2006 defines energy security as follows: The country is energy secure when we can supply lifeline energy to all our citizens… as well as meet their effective demand for safe and convenient energy to satisfy… various needs at competitive prices, at all times with a prescribed confidence level considering shocks and disruptions that can be reasonably expected.4 This definition includes within it key aspects of energy security: those related to poverty and those related to growth, and is an acceptable definition for India with the understanding that the word “prices” needs to be read as referring not just to monetary costs, but also environmental externalities. India has one-third of the world’s population using polluting fuels for cooking and heating5 with attendant environmental health and mortality issues. India’s GDP is expected to grow at 8–9 per cent per annum. At the [3.239.208.72] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 11:33 GMT) India’s Perspectives on Energy Security 113 prevailing energy elasticity of about 0.8, this kind of growth will require energy consumption in the country to grow by about 5.6 to 6.4 per cent. However, if one considers the fact that energy elasticity6 has declined from 1.08 during the 1980s to 0.8 in the 1990s, it would not be unreasonable to assume that the expected growth rates can be sustained even with lower energy growth if efforts are made to improve energy efficiency in the country. As one of India’s energy planners puts it, the challenge for the country is to decouple economic growth (which is key to addressing India...