Climate action: India to talk up biofuels at UAE summit

As part of the advocacy, the government also plans to light up the iconic Burj Khalifa with ‘GBA’, said two people aware of the development.

The marquee alliance with India, the US and Brazil as its founding members was launched at the G20 summit hosted by New Delhi in September, and has grown rapidly, with a total of 22 countries having agreed to join the GBA.

The alliance has an eye on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec)-plus grouping, of which the UAE is a member, but is yet to fInd support from Saudi Arabia and Russia.

The plan also involves holding an industry roundtable on what the GBA would mean for the industry.

The move also gives a signal to the Opec+ grouping, which has ignored calls by New Delhi to increase production amid record high prices of petroleum products.

Russia, meanwhile, is part of the Opec+ that has been announcing successive production cuts at a time when global economic recovery has been fragile. “We will showcase GBA at COP as advocacy. While we are the latest entrant, we are here and we are actually going to help you in decarbonization. Also, we will light up Burj Khalifa with GBA. We are looking at booking a slot," said one of the two government officials cited above requesting anonymity.

There is a growing traction for biofuels, with the global ethanol market valued at $99.06 billion in 2022 and predicted to grow at a CAGR of 5.1% to reach $162.12 billion by 2032 . GBA founders USA (52%), Brazil (30%) and India (3%) contribute 85% to ethanol production and make up 81% of consumption. Within a short period, a total of 12 international organizations have also agreed to join the GBA.

These include eight countries of the G20 grouping—USA, Brazil, India, South Africa, Argentina, Italy, Canada and Japan. The other countries include the UAE, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Mauritius, Philippines, Paraguay, Guyana, Iceland, Uganda, Finland, Kenya, Tanzania and Seychelles.

A dozen international organisations include the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, International Energy Agency, and International Civil Aviation Organization.

“India has only 3% of the total global biofuel market in the world, yet we are becoming a leader in that. How did we create a niche space for India? One is the trajectory of uptake of biofuels. That in itself is a heartening experience from where we were to where we are now. The second thing is if we get to have the standards, the way in which the industry in India will get to benefit, then we have created a space for our companies," the first official said.

Queries emailed to the spokespersons of India’s ministries of petroleum and natural gas, external affairs and environment, forest and climate change on Wednesday evening remained unanswered at press time.

The GBA’s focus is on speeding up biofuel adoption, creating new biofuels, setting internationally recognized standards and codes, identifying global best practices, and ensuring industry participation to have quantifiable outputs.

While first generation biofuels are produced from sugar, starch, corn, wheat and broken rice, among others, 2G or second-generation biofuels are produced from various types of non-food biomass, such as plant materials and animal waste. And 3G biofuel is produced from microorganisms such as bacteria and algae.

India has an ambitious biofuel roadmap under its national biofuel policy wherein the government has set a target to achieve 20% ethanol blending in petrol by 2025-26. The initial deadline to achieve 20% blending was 2030. The target of petrol supplies with 10% ethanol blending was achieved in June last year, ahead of the original schedule of November 2022.