COP26: can billionaire fossil-fuel tycoons Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani bring the Midas touch to India’s net-zero ambitions?
- The two richest men in Asia, who made their fortunes on the back of coal and oil, are competing against each other in a pivot to green energy that aligns with PM Narendra Modi’s ambitious climate targets
- With India needing US$1.4 trillion over the next 20 years to get on a sustainable path, according to the International Energy Association, it’s hoped that their involvement will encourage other investors to bet big on renewables
For six years, Adani, Asia’s second-richest person who heads coal-to-ports giant Adani Enterprises, was the only powerhouse player in India’s renewables space. But now Ambani, Asia’s wealthiest magnate who leads oil-to-retail juggernaut Reliance Industries, is making a determined push into clean energy with his firm Reliance New Energy.
Reliance has been engaged in a frenzy of deal-making ever since Ambani announced a US$10-billion, three-year investment in June to build an end-to-end renewable energy ecosystem through solar, batteries and hydrogen.
For Ambani, whose Reliance Industries gets 60 per cent of its revenues from petroleum products, the move to renewables is inevitable given the doomsday climate writing on the wall.
“The world is entering a new energy era,” he told shareholders. “The age of fossil fuels … cannot continue much longer. The huge quantities of carbon emitted into the environment have endangered life on Earth.”
Underscoring the reputed rivalry between the low-profile billionaires, who both come from Modi’s western home state of Gujarat, Adani quickly upped his game after Ambani unveiled his plans.
Adani, who reinvented himself as a “green-and-clean” energy tsar after his ports-and-power assets looked to be struggling, said he would invest US$20 billion over 10 years in renewables and vowed to be the world’s biggest clean-energy producer by 2030.