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FIIA Spotlight on Energy Transition #4: India’s low-carbon transition: from critical minerals to nuclear power

Webinar · 23.05.2024 13:00 - 14:15

Thursday 23 May 2024 at 13:00-14:15 EEST/12:00-13:15 CEST

India is emerging as a major power in renewable energy production, currently ranking fourth in the world in terms of installed renewable capacity and spurred by plans to increase non-fossil fuel-based electric power capacity to 50% by 2030. With considerable domestic reserves of critical minerals that are crucial for renewable energy production, India has an advantage not only to innovate and further develop the sector but also to boost its position in geostrategic competition with other players in the field. In addition, the country continues to invest heavily in nuclear energy, which expands its potential for low-carbon production. The choices that India makes will have implications on the low-carbon transition at a global scale.

This webinar will consider the geopolitical ramifications of India’s low-carbon transition. How is India working towards securing resilient and self-reliant supply chains for critical minerals? How is it using and cultivating international partnerships to promote not only clean energy targets but also geostrategic aspirations? What kind of implications will this have on India’s relations with other regional and global powers, particularly China? To what extent is the aim of safeguarding renewable energy supply chains seen as an issue of national security?

This webinar is the fourth in a series of ‘Spotlight’ events looking at the fundamental transformations taking place in energy systems and is part of the FIIA project The Global Politics of the Energy Transition.

You can register to follow the webinar here.

Speakers

Dhanasree Jayaram

Assistant Professor at Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Karnataka, India

Dr. Dhanasree Jayaram is an Assistant Professor, Department of Geopolitics and International Relations (DGIR), and Co-coordinator, Centre for Climate Studies, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Karnataka, India. At DGIR, she teaches environmental security, International Relations theory, and critical geopolitics, among other topics. She is also a Research Fellow, Earth System Governance; Member, Climate Security Expert Network; Research Fellow, Centre for Public Policy Research; and Member, Planet Politics Institute.

Dr. Jayaram holds a PhD in Geopolitics and International Relations from MAHE. She was a Research Fellow at Centre Marc Bloch (CMB) and Guest Researcher at Freie Universität Berlin – under the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s International Climate Protection Fellowship during March 2022-August 2023. During this period, she conducted research mainly on locating gender in climate diplomacy with a focus on India, Germany, and the European Union (EU). She also pursued a visiting fellowship (Erasmus Mundus – short-term PhD) at Leiden University, the Netherlands during 2014-2015; and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, under the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship during 2018-2019. As a part of her postdoctoral fellowship, she researched the climate diplomacy of emerging economies with a focus on the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) during 2009-2019. She managed a project of adelphi (Berlin) on “Climate Diplomacy”, sponsored by the German Federal Foreign Office during 2015-2020.

Ramu C. M.

Senior Geopolitical Analyst, APAC Assistance, Singapore

Dr. Ramu C.M is a Senior Geopolitical Analyst at APAC Assistance, a boutique risk management firm based out of Singapore. He is also a consultant for Bloomberg-Asharq News and Sky News Arabia, both based out of the United Arab Emirates. He appears periodically as a commentator on energy issues and geopolitics in the networks' primetime news shows. Prior to his current role, he worked as an Intelligence Analyst for the North Star Support Group, a risk advisory firm based out of Bucharest, Romania. He holds a PhD in Geopolitics and International Relations from the Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India. His core research focused on the geopolitics and geoeconomics of networked energy infrastructures across select pertinent Eurasian geographies.

Ramu has a multidisciplinary academic background, blending his bachelor's degree in geology with onward studies in geopolitics, security studies, and the international political economy. This fueled his interest in energy and environmental security, as well as the extractive industries. He keenly observes and analyzes debates on the fossil fuel and renewable energy industry from the perspectives of both energy security and the green transition. He has previously designed and taught modules on various vectors of energy geopolitics for his alma mater.

Pallavi Pal

Doctoral candidate, University of Tampere

Pallavi Pal is a doctoral researcher at Tampere University. She is currently writing her doctoral dissertation titled “Russia’s nuclear energy diplomacy vis-à-vis India: The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant 1&2 agreement (1979-2016)”. She has earlier worked within the Energy Policy in European Integration Project and Academy of Finland funded project Cultural Statecraft in International Relations: The Case of Russia. Her research interest focuses on the nuclear energy technology export by Russia and understanding nuclear energy from the perspective of social sciences. In her research she studies nuclear energy diplomacy by understanding Russia’s nuclear energy technology export, the actors involved and their interests, and the structures shaping their operations abroad.

Chair

Emma Hakala

Leading Researcher, FIIA

Dr. Emma Hakala is a Leading Researcher at FIIA. Her research focuses on environmental security and the geopolitics of climate change, such as the role of international actors in building climate security practices. She leads the project “Climate change and Finland’s security of supply” and a part on conflict analysis in the project “Water Cooperation and Peace – Finnish Water Way”, which FIIA implements as a partner of the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE).

Hakala gained her D.Soc.Sci degree in political history at the University of Helsinki in 2019. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the securitisation of the environment and the role of international organisations in post-conflict Western Balkans. Hakala has previously obtained a Master’s degree in political history at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki. Hakala is also currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the project “Toxic Crimes: Legal Activism against Wartime Environmental Destruction” at the University of Helsinki and a member of the multidisciplinary BIOS Research Unit.