PM Modi announces global biofuel alliance for clean energy push, invites G20 leaders to join

G20 Summit 2023: PM Narendra Modi on Saturday launched the Global Biofuel Alliance to boost the use of cleaner fuels. India has been pushing the idea of setting up a Global Biofuels Alliance to help accelerate energy transition. 

The alliance, with the United States and Brazil as its founding members, is somewhat like the International Solar Alliance (ISA) piloted by New Delhi and Paris in 2015 to bring clean and affordable solar energy within the reach of all. 

The alliance would help accelerate global efforts to meet net zero emissions targets by facilitating trade in biofuels derived from sources, including plant and animal waste.

"We are launching the Global Biofuel Alliance. India invites all of you to join this initiative," PM Modi said in his remarks to leaders from the Group of 20 major economies at the summit.

During the India Energy Week 2023 in February, Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri had announced the alliance.

The G20 is in a good position just before the summit begins and it will be announcing the Global Biofuel Alliance, G20 coordinator Harsh Vardhan Shringla said on Saturday.

Several G20 nations have shown interest in the alliance and Shringla said it will be announced during the summit.

The biofuel alliance will intensify the utilisation of sustainable biofuels, even in the transport sector, and facilitate cooperation, according to the government. Biofuel is a renewable source of energy which is derived from biomass.

India, which is the world's third-biggest oil importer and consumer, imports about 85 per cent of its crude needs and is gradually building capacity to increase its output of biofuels.

India has been targeting to become carbon neutral by 2070 and is expanding the use of biofuel in its transport sector. It has advanced the deadline by 5 years to 2025 for doubling nationwide ethanol blending in gasoline to 20 per cent.

Earlier this month, PM Modi said that India's proposal for a global alliance on biofuels during the G20 Summit will help accelerate sustainable biofuels deployment in support of the global energy transition.

"Such alliances are aimed at creating options for developing countries to advance their energy transitions," PM Modi had told news agency PTI.

"Biofuels are also important from the perspective of a circular economy. Markets, trade, technology, and policy - all aspects of international cooperation are crucial in creating such opportunities," Modi had noted.

India is trying to produce fuel from items including crop stubble, plant waste and municipal solid waste. India has already scheduled to double the mixing of ethanol extracted from sugarcane and agriculture waste to 20 per cent with petrol by 2025. The government has set up dozens of compressed biogas (CBG) plants for this purpose.

The International Energy Agency estimates in a July report that global sustainable biofuels production would need to triple by 2030 to put the world's energy system on track towards net zero emissions by 2050.

Also read: Consensus reached at G20, 'New Delhi Declaration' adopted, announces PM Modi

Also read: Amid Space Race 2.0, US-India discuss details of sending first Indian astronaut to International Space Station in 2024