The Centre for Social and Economic Progress had the pleasure of hosting a discussion on CBAM and Beyond: Exploring the Potential Impact on Industries and Trade on Saturday, September 30, 2023. Emanating from a CSEP-SNIOE study titled, “Assessing the Impact of CBAM on Emissions Intensive Trade Exposed (EITE) Industries in India”, the discussion highlighted the uncertainties and challenges for India and other developing countries heavily reliant on exporting energy-intensive goods to the European Union.

About the event

EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is a policy designed to address carbon leakage and competitiveness concerns by levying a carbon price on certain imported goods based on their embedded carbon emissions.  The event aims to engage in a discussion, gathering insights and feedback from key stakeholders including industry, policymakers and think tanks about the potential effects and implications of CBAM. The discussion shall revolve around, but not be restricted to, key questions/issues highlighted below.

• How can the Indian industry and the government address the CBAM challenge?
• What is the extent of green energy/green technology usage in the EITE sectors and how can it be promoted further?
• What role do financial instruments such as green bonds play in inducing green energy adoption?
• What are the incentives available to the CBAM-affected firms for enhancing competition and environmental actions?
• Availability of data and other necessary information that would help make the industry resilient to these changes.
• Specific actions, benefits and potential costs for firms, government and other relevant stakeholders.

Welcome & Closing Remarks

Laveesh Bhandari is President and a Senior Fellow at CSEP. He has been leading climate change and sustainability research at CSEP, and has published widely on subjects related to sustainable livelihoods, industrial, economic and social reforms in India, economic geography and financial inclusion. He has taught economics at Boston University and IIT Delhi. He has been the managing editor of the Journal of Emerging Market Finance and worked at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi.

Chair

Bishwanath Goldar is a retired Professor of Economics of Institute of Economic Growth (IEG), Delhi. He was a member of the National Statistical Commission and a National Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR). He was a Professor at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi, during 2003-04 and a Visiting Professor at the Centre for International Trade and Development, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, during 2012-13. He is currently a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Institute of Economic Growth and a member of the Standing Committee on Statistics, set up by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India. He has many publications in economic journals. His areas of research interest include productivity measurement, industry, trade, foreign direct investment, industrial pollution, energy use of industries, river water pollution, and rural water supply.

Presenters

Rajat Kathuria is the Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence. He is the former Director and Chief Executive of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). He worked with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India during its Initial years. He is currently the Co-chair of the T20 Digital Task Force under India’s G20 Presidency.

He has over 20 years of experience in teaching and 25 years of experience in economic policy, besides research interests on a range of issues relating to regulation and competition policy. He has worked with the World Bank, Washington DC as a Consultant and carried out research assignments for a number of international organisations, including ILO, UNCTAD, LirneAsia, World Bank, and ADB. He has published in international and national journals, besides in popular magazines and newspapers. He is a founder member of the Broadband Society for Universal Access and has served on the Boards of the Delhi Management Association and the Micro Finance Institutional Network of India. He is on several government and industry committees and has been on the research advisor council of SBI. He has an undergraduate degree in Economics from St. Stephens College, a Masters from Delhi School of Economics, and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Ram Ranjan is a Professor of environmental and resource economics at Shiv Nadar University. In the past, he has worked at USDA’s Economic Research Services, University of Florida, CSIRO, and Macquarie University. He has interests in water scarcity and livelihoods management, biodiversity conservation, and climate change mitigation and adaptation challenges. A unifying theme for some his work has been managing dynamic risks as well as understanding how changes in natural environments create complex feedbacks in inter-linked human, ecological, and economic systems. Ram is currently working on utilizing eco-friendly financial instruments, such as Payment for Ecosystem Services and Green Bonds, for addressing climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation challenges.

Cheshta Grover is a Research Analyst at CSEP. She holds masters in Economics from Delhi school of Economics and pursuing PhD in Economics from Shiv Nadar University. Earlier she has worked as an educator at the Centre for Complexity Economics, Applied Spirituality, and Public Policy (CEASP), OP Jindal University. Her research interest lies in Macroeconomics, Economic Growth, Development Economics, Environment Economics, International Trade and Sustainable Development.

Discussants

Rajesh Chadha is a Senior Fellow at CSEP. He was formerly a Professor & Research Director at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and former to that, an Associate Professor of Economics at Hindu College, University of Delhi. He has worked extensively on regional and multilateral issues of international trade. His other areas of interest include non-fuel minerals & mining in India, foreign direct investment and agricultural markets. He has provided research support to the Indian Government on multiple projects. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Universities of Michigan, Melbourne, and Monash and Visiting Faculty at many prestigious academic and research institutes in India. He was nominated as GTAP Research Fellow (2004-2007) by the Global Trade Analysis Project, Purdue University, USA. He received his PhD in Economics from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. 

Dibyendu Maiti is a Professor of Economics at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, India. He specialises in development macroeconomics and international economics, focusing on labour, technology, and the informal sector. Before this, he worked at the University of the South Pacific, Institute of Economic Growth Delhi, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta as well as held various research positions at the University of Manchester, University of Nottingham, Max Planck Institute of Economics (Jena), Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, University of Oslo. He received the Max-Planck India Fellowship, ICSSR-ESRC exchange and ICSSR-CASS exchange fellowship. He publishes research articles in reputed journals, like Journal of Development Economics, Social Research Indicators, Journal of Productivity Analysis, Labour Economics, Economic Modelling, International Review of Economics and Finance, Cambridge Journal of Economics, American Behavioural Scientists etc. Recently, he published a book named Digitalisation and Development – India and beyond. He is an associate editor of Progress in Development Studies (Sage). He received the IDRC Young India Social Sciences Award, 2010 and Global Development Network Award, 2009.

Please contact Manmeet Ahuja at MAhuja@csep.org for event-related inquiries or Trishna Wahengbam at TWahengbam@csep.org for media inquiries.