Energy Transition and the Global Energy Regime: Strategising India’s Energy Relations

The world energy order is reaching to the point of inflexion. Its dynamics no more reflects the binary pulls and pressure from/by consumers and producers. It no more remains the preserve of the state or market exclusively. It cannot even be defined in terms of national security alone. It has become transnational and part of Global Common. Thus it has acquired a distinct composite character with strategic connotation to environment, energy poverty national and international security. Consequently the discourse on energy has moved on from securitisation to sustainability. The UN declaration to dedicate the present decade i.e. 2014–2024 to ‘Sustainable Energy for All’ locates the energy on the intersection of above mentioned diverse concerns. It calls for an inclusive global energy regime to alleviate the global energy poverty while preserving the ecology. Clearly such a regime cannot be premised on conflict-competition matrix, it has to be imagined as common global construct. In other words the trade-off is not to be seen between those who have consumed and those are potential consumers of energy or between and among different components of energy mix. It is the question of framing a holistic regime that looks at the energy security in wider terms at global scale as complex interdependent project. In this chapter attempt has been made to reflect upon the positioning of India in the larger global energy frame. It analyses the dynamics of energy transition and the role that the Indian energy regime could play in its accomplishing. It also attempts to look at the strategy that India as leading energy consumer needs to conceive by defining matrix of its energy relations in making of an energy regime which facilitates energy transition to address the issue of energy poverty at global level.