India-Australia relation: Towards sustainable future

Synopsis: How India and Australia are working towards a sustainable world.

Background

• The year 2020 witnessed the spread of the Pandemic, bushfires in Australia as a consequence of climate change. It has taught the following important lessons to the world.
  • The need to strengthen the resilience of our global communities.
  • The importance of innovation, resources, and leadership to protect and support our communities.
  • The need for global cooperation is critical to contain global average temperatures below 2° Centigrade.
  • Traditional Indigenous knowledge about the land is important together with modern science. For example, using traditional fire management practices, through cool and controlled burns.
• In this context, we will discuss the steps taken by Australia to adapt and build a resilient economy against climate change. And how the India-Australia partnership is working towards this goal.

How Australia is ensuring resilience to its communities?

• Funding: Australia will invest ₹1,500 crores in its natural resources, environment, and water infrastructure. It will increase resilience to drought and climate disasters. It is also spending more than ₹200 crores on bushfire recovery efforts by supporting local communities.
• Building Institutions: Australia is establishing a new National Resilience, Relief, and Recovery Agency. It aims to reduce natural disaster risk, enhance natural disaster resilience and ensure effective relief and recovery to all hazards.
• Global cooperation: It has pledged to contribute ₹150 crores to global climate finance from 2020 to 2025. About ₹50 crores of this funding will be used to help the Pacific countries to deploy renewable energy, and improve their climate change and disaster resilience.
  • They are also committed to sharing their experiences and skills with the world through its development Programme and the Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific.

How Australia is collaborating with India to build resilient economies for the future?

India and Australia are collaborating in various fields to mitigate the effects of climate change. It will be helpful to build resilient future economies. Some of them are

• First, collaboration in disaster management. Both the countries are working as close partners in global initiatives such as Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure and International Solar Alliance. It is spearheaded by India and ensures the development of resilient infrastructure against climate change.
• Second, collaboration in the field of Water Resources Management. Both the countries aim to enhance each country’s water management capabilities and share expertise and best practice.
• Third, collaboration in the field of developing green technologies to lower carbon emissions. To achieve this, Australia has released the Technology Investment Roadmap, a comprehensive plan to invest in low emission technologies to the tune of ₹7,000 crores by 2030.
  • It focuses on accelerating technologies like hydrogen, carbon capture use, and storage, soil carbon, energy storage.
  • It will ensure the widespread global deployment of these technologies by the partnerships with growing economies like India.
• Fourth, the Australia-India Joint Energy Dialogue. It will strengthen cooperation between the two countries in various areas like; pumped hydro storage, cost-effective battery technologies, hydrogen and coal gasification, adoption of clean energy technology, fly ash management technologies, and solar forecasting and scheduling.

Way forward

• In the path towards climate action, it is necessary that we need to engage all stakeholders equally and respect indigenous culture and knowledge.
• Also, we need to prioritize practical actions that help us adapt to those changes and strengthen the resilience of our local environments.