India is set to continue as the world’s fastest growing major economy due to stronger consumer demand, economists predict a 7.1% year-on-year expansion in for the next few years. Sustainability of economic growth in a finite resource setting has long been questioned and acknowledged as a complex issue by various think tanks such as club or Rome. Complexity arises because of potential nonlinearities in the relationships between the economy and ecology. The rate of depletion of resources such as coal in India over the years has become faster leading to the risk of fewer resources, increasing cost of extraction and pushing the economy towards its limits to growth. This severe resource depletion and ultimate resource exhaustion consequently leads to economic contraction or sustained economic depression.

Growing shortage in resources and renewable opportunity

India’s Shortage of coal and reliance on foreign oil and gas has caused major shocks in the economy over the past decade causing inflation and large deficits due to government subsidies. 240 million Indians do not have power and the central way of generating and distributing power is a heavy burden on the fiscal deficit of the Indian economy. There is a growing mandate by the Indian government to partner with private players to produce decentralized power that is clean and scalable. It has been nearly three years since the Indian government announced the 100 gigawatt (GW) solar capacity target for March 2022. Annual capacity addition has grown in the last three years at a compounded annual growth rate of 80% to an estimated 16 GW as of September. Top international and Indian investors, including private equity funds, sovereign wealth funds, conglomerates and utilities have entered the market, drawn by its high growth prospects and supportive policy framework.

Greeneum is ideally placed to create micro credits for decentralized power producers to help the government acheive the target capacity. Greeneum can leverage the incentives provided by the government?—?capital subsidies, accelerated depreciation, free transmission, zero value-added tax, etc to play a central role in transforming the energy market.

Climate, credit and the farmer

The starkest manifestation of India’s ‘agri crisis’ is suicides by farmers that has been growing?—?8,000 in 2015, a 42% increase from the year before. Just a degree rise in temperatures above 20 degrees during the crucial crop growing season (June-September) could push up the number of suicides by 70. In the last 30 years, a total of 59,000 farmer suicides in India have been attributed to the direct cause of rising temperatures, credit issues, high cost of energy etc.

More than 35% of the total agriculture loan is directed to small and marginal farmers though they hold more than 70% of the country’s farmland. A large number of these farmers still take loans from money-lenders and not from the formal banking channel, resulting in farmers’ suicide and distress. Various banks in India are also under stress due to failing crops and poor data for weather modeling, thereby increasing the risk of credit.

Greeneum can revolutionize the farm credit industry by actively monitoring weather data from solar panels and provide better and more accurate weather models to price the risk of certain farm loans. It can also alert the farmer on the success or failure rate of the crop / yield per sq hectare etc. Thereby helping the farmer and the financial institutions in the country.

India’s commitment to Copenhagen

India committed to cutting its carbon intensity by 20 to 25 percent between 2005 and 2020. So 20% would be enough to keep its commitment. But 'intensity' equals emissions divided by GDP, so intensity is reduced by increasing GDP, and India plans to increase that dramatically. Recently the U.S. Dept. of Energy estimated that India would reduce its emissions intensity by 43.5 percent. India had pledged to do most of it. Investment opportunities exist in India in the areas of energy efficiency, forestry and agriculture through either public-private partnerships or through CDM project activities providing carbon offsets for domestic carbon markets worldwide.

Plugging in Greeneum and Solarcoins as a medium of trading carbon credits and help institutions in India raise capital in global markets can assist the country in meeting its Copenhagen accord obligations.

Greeneum as a technology player has tremendous potential to transform emerging and fast growing economies in India and can be a major force of good. It can be a technology platform that can cut across institutional boundaries and assist in acheiving sustaniability goals over the next decade.

Greeneum Network leverages blockchain technology, smart contracts and artificial intelligence (AI) to incentivize and decentralise the energy marketplace so all stakeholders can reliably produce, trade and consume energy. Ultimately, reducing the world’s carbon footprint and painting the world green.

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