Why French President Macron's India visit may make Justin Trudeau feel snubbed

My article Why French President Macron's India visit may make Justin Trudeau feel snubbed appeared in Mail Today and DailyO

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Over the last two decades, the partnership has grown steadily, with no major political differences darkening the sky between Paris and Delhi.

It is not easy to guess in advance how successful will be the visit of the head of a state in another country; there is, however, no doubt that the forthcoming visit of President Emmanuel Macron of France will be the opposite of Justin Trudeau’s, the Canadian prime minister, and this for many reasons.
First, the French President and his charismatic wife will certainly not waste their time parading around religious places or bringing along known separatists. But more importantly, the Indo-French relations are based on a twenty-year-old strategic partnership signed by the former French President Jacques Chirac and then Indian Prime Minister, Vajpayee; the latter then declared: “Both countries share a perspective that the new world order has to be a genuine multi-polar world order. Our bilateral relationship is poised to grow in the coming months in a multifaceted manner.”

No differences
Over the last two decades, the partnership has grown steadily, with no major political differences darkening the sky between Paris and Delhi. France has constantly been supportive of India, particularly for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council and has shown more comprehension than others in the nuclear domain. Though in recent years, the term "strategic partnership" has been devalued by the multiplication of such accords with all and sundry, in the Indo-French case, the 1998 momentum has been regularly sustained by new initiatives.
Then in September 2016, there was the Rs 59,000 crore deal for 36 Rafale fighters; though criticised by some political parties, it will soon prove to be a game changer, especially due the offset clauses. But there is more.
In October 2017, in an interview, the French defence minister Florence Parly stated that she had come to Delhi because India is "our major strategic partner in Asia". She noted that the relationship was “the fruit of a long, shared history, grounded in an unshakable trust,” adding “our partnership is continuing to develop even more, including in very sensitive areas.”
These "sensitive" areas make the difference. Macron’s visit was delayed for a few months due to the importance of an important joint initiative, the International Solar Alliance (ISA). Launched at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris in November 2015, the ISA wants to create a coalition of solar resource-rich countries and address each participant’s special energy needs.
On January 25, 2016, the ISA’s interim Secretariat was inaugurated at the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE) in Gurgaon by Modi and Hollande. A total of 56 countries have now signed the ISA Framework Agreement and 26 nations have ratified it. The ISA founding conference, co-hosted by India and France, will take place on March 11 at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
It was significant that the French defence minister travelled to Nagpur to launch a joint production facility between Dassault Aviation and Reliance to fulfill the Rafale deal’s offset obligation. Around Rs 20,000 crores need to be invested by the French. Madame Parly, along with Dassault Aviation chairman Eric Trappier and Reliance chairman Anil Ambani, laid the foundation stone of an aerospace park for the manufacture of aircraft components.

New offer
The Dassault–Reliance Joint Venture (JV) has already shortlisted a large number of vendors, mostly small and medium-sized enterprises, to be part of an indigenous supply chain for the Rafales; in other words, the "Make in India" programme.
During the forthcoming presidential visit, a deal should be signed between India and Safran (one of the partners of Dassault in the Rafale deal) to develop an M88 engine for the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas. A report in The Tribune recently hinted that “the M88 engine would be used as the base engine to adapt it for the LCA programme or it would be an altogether new development using Safran technology to create a new engine from the ground upwards.” Safran has now offered to collaborate on the Kaveri engine programme as part of the 50 per cent offsets for the Rafale deal.

Futuristic research
Florence Parly’s visit was followed by foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian’s trip. Again a launch pad in several fields; the minister mentioned common bilateral interests such as “combating terrorism, maritime security, cooperation in the Indian Ocean.”
Another highpoint of Macron’s visit could be a logistics accord allowing India access to the strategically important French base in the Reunion Islands near Madagascar. Another possibility is the opening of the French facilities in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa where India’s rival China has already a military base. This is part of India’s new maritime strategy.
It might also make economic and strategic sense for India to partner with France in more futuristic research projects like a fifth-generation combat plane or an armed drone.
It might not be for this visit.

'We must go from words to deeds': The world must unite and sign global climate deal says UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon

My article 'We must go from words to deeds': The world must unite and sign global climate deal says UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has been published in Mail Today.

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UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon will request world leaders to sign Paris Agreement on climate change.

April 22 is World Earth Day. On the occasion, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon will request world leaders sign the Paris Agreement on climate change at the UN Headquarters in New York.
After the historic agreement adopted by 195 countries at COP21 Conference in Paris in December, the next step is the signature of the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal.
During a recent press briefing, Ban noted: “It will enable us to increase ambition on a regular basis, which is essential if we are to keep global temperature rise to well below two degree celsius.”
The UN boss emphasised: “It has just begun. In 2016, we must go from words to deeds.”
The Signature Ceremony will be the opportunity for each government to start implementing the Paris Agreement and hopefully save the Planet.
But don’t clap too early. At the behest of the United States, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) may derail India’s ambitious solar power programme.
Responding to a US complaint, a WTO dispute panel recently ruled that several provisions of India’s National Solar Mission were ‘inconsistent’ with international trade norms.

Climate
In 2011, the Congress government plans 100 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2022 under this scheme; it was a way to actively participate in the world effort to slowdown climate change; the scheme envisaged that a large percentage of the cells and panels would be manufactured in India by local companies.
Unfortunately, such provisions, known as ‘domestic content requirements’ (DCR), are prohibited by the WTO under international trade agreements.
A Delhi-based daily observed: “India’s solar manufacturing industry is likely to be in the pits and thousands of job opportunities lost, thanks to a recent WTO ruling..."The worrying bit is also that these module-manufacturing units are low-investment industries that have the potential to employ a very large number of semi-skilled labour.”
With 300 million Indians without access to electricity, the Solar Mission was a win-win project with a dual objective: combat poverty via job creation and add to India’s solar capacity.
But the US manufacturers do not see it from this angle. For them, the scheme led to a 90 per cent decrease in its solar exports to India since the inception of the mission.
Though resolutely opposed by several US environmental groups, the US manufacturers filed a WTO complaint.
In August 2015, a WTO panel released a preliminary ruling against the Indian DCR’s requirements, and early 2016, the ‘final’ ruling was announced.

Co-operation
The BBC asked the right question: “Whatever happened to all the talk of international co-operation to tackle climate change that we heard during the climate conference in Paris just a few months ago?”
Arriving at the end of its term, the Obama administration has probably forgotten ‘Shared Effort; Progress for All’, the US-India joint statement, signed during Barack Obama’s visit to India in January 2015: “President Obama and Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi share a deep concern regarding the climate challenge and understand that meeting it will require concerted action by their countries and the international community.”
At the end, business is business, and for the US corporate world, the change of climate can go with the wind, money is its first and last concern.

Self-esteem
Ben Beachy, Senior Policy Advisor, Responsible Trade Program, Sierra Club, said in an Huffington Post report: “Bringing this case is a perverse move for the United States. Nearly half of the US has renewable energy programmes that, like India’s solar programme, include ‘buy-local’ rules that create local, green jobs and bring new solar entrepreneurs to the economy.
"The US government should drop this case to avoid undermining jobs and climate protections not just in India, but also at home.”
It is doubtful if Obama is ready to take on corporate America during an election year.
In the meantime, the Government of India has announced that it will appeal against the WTO verdict.

Solar Energy ...for Nuclear Missiles

A French website recently reported that China is building a giant solar power plant in the desert.
It gave some details about China's latest ‘sustainable’ prowess: “A colossal complex emerges from the sand, right in the Gobi Desert at Delingha, in the heart of China's Mainland. The complex, constructed on no less than 25 km², is designed to generate power through solar concentrators, one of the cleanest and secure electricity production methods to date.”
That sounds great.
The article continues: “Despite its poor ecological balance, China is making considerable efforts to limit as much as possible its carbon emissions. It has become the largest investor in renewable energy in the world. Given the high demand for energy of its 1.3 billion people, projects for clean energy are proving equally colossal.”
Still great!

Located in Haixi [Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, locally known as Qaidam Prefecture] in Qinghai province [formerly Amdo province of Tibet], "in the heart of the Gobi Desert [?], Delingha is one of those outsized projects that attempt to pull the Chinese Republic into a more sustainable future. In practice, there is a vast complex where thousands of mirrors concentrate sunlight on large towers.”
The article explains that this technique should not be confused with a photovoltaic farm.
In Delingha, the heat generated by the sun is captured and converted into electricity by using turbines as in a conventional thermal power plant: “After its construction, with its 25 square kilometers, it will be the largest solar power plant ever built.”
The project is a collaboration between BrightSource Energy, a Californian company and the Shanghai Electric Group.
Apparently, the project aims at providing electricity to more than one million homes: “With molten salts capable of maintaining the stored heat the day, designers estimate that 7 hour storage time of solar power will be enough to guarantee a stable and continuous production of electricity.”

One could ask: where are all these houses in the desert?
But the website continues: “Beyond its own electricity production, the plant is expected to replace the equivalent of 4.69 million tons of coal per year (the main energy source in China), a reduction of 896,000 tons of emissions of carbon dioxide per year and 8906 tons of sulfur dioxide.”
Again great! But who needs all this electricity?
The article gives some details: “The first phase of the project is to fence the first two solar towers with a capacity of 135 megawatts each. A total of 6 mirrors fields (for 6 towers) will be provided, with the hope of starting production by 2017. At the end, the project is expected to save nearly 20 million tons of carbon emissions during its existence. With this effort, China hopes to peak emissions of carbon dioxide by 2030 and then decline.
Will it be sufficient to avoid an ecological crash?”
The conclusion is “Only the future will tell us.”
A few years ago, I mentioned Delingha on this blog.
Why?
Not for solar energy!

It is the main base for nuclear ballistic missiles in the Middle Kingdom.
I quoted from an article ‘DF-21C Missile Deploys to Central China’, written by Hans M. Kristensen for the serious Strategic Security Blog of the Federation  of American Scientists.
Kristensen said: “Analysis of commercial satellite imagery reveals that launch units for the road-mobile DF-21C medium-range ballistic missile now deploy several hundred kilometers west of Delingha in the western part of central China.”

These medium-range missiles were (are?) targeting North India.
Now, the desert site will be supplied by solar energy.
We can not say 'great' anymore!
Read Kristensen' article, you will understand for what the solar energy produced in Delingha is for.
But it is certainly not to feed electricity into one million houses.