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India overtakes China as green investment leader: India has surpassed China as a leading destination for green projects, with USD 2.4 bn worth of agreements completed in 3Q — 4x more than China and nabbing the second spot globally after the US, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The country’s heavy renewable push is motivated by an urge to boost local production to limit dependence on China and become a major green tech exporter, the founding partner of GEF Capital Partners Raj Pai told Bloomberg.
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How is India pulling it off? The Indian market has become very attractive for private and public capital interested in green tech and projects, thanks to over a dozen IPOs and a series of favorable government policies to curb pollution and encourage the clean energy sector. Bucking the global trend of reduced venture capital in climate tech, about a quarter of all seed-stage investments flowing in the country went towards climate-related startups, the head of the UK government’s development-finance British International Investment arm Abhinav Sinha told Bloomberg.
Shell is scaling back its new offshore wind investments and low-carbon ventures amid a restructuring of its power division, Reuters reported last week. The decision follows an extensive review aimed at reducing costs and focusing on high-return activities. The company said it will continue developing existing offshore wind projects but has retreated from several, including in South Korea and the US.
An exodus? The offshore wind sector has been struggling with supply chain instability and high interest rates and costs that diminished profitability, reports Reuters. British oil giant BP, for example, said in October it was considering selling a minority stake in its offshore wind business. This came after BP said it was planning to sell its US onshore wind energy business BP Wind Energy and shift focus to developing utility-scale onshore renewable energy and solar power globally through Lightsource BP.
Shell is also downsizing their climate efforts: Shell – which successfully appealed a 2021 ruling that mandated it to cut its carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 – has been reportedly planning to sell a stake in its nature-based carbon projects amid a market contraction and price drop for emissions offsets. The oil giant also halted construction on its Rotterdam biofuels plant and backtracked its pledge to recycle 1 mn tons of plastic waste a year to use in their global chemicals plants by 2025 last July.
