Walk the Green Talk

Context: If India has to meet climate change mitigation targets, or even exceed them by 2047, as the PM has assured, it needs to take decisive action now.

India’s Climate Actions (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions and other actions)

• Renewable energy targets: Indian aims to achieve 40 % of its energy needs from renewables by 2030. (The aim exceeded to 450-500 GW by the PM in 2018, Global Climate Action Summit)
  • While existing capacity in at 81 GW, there has been a 72% increase in installed renewables capacity over the last 6 years.
• 33% forest cover target: to achieve 2.5 – 3 billion tonnes of carbon sequestration; currently stand at 21% of Total Geographical Area (TGA) (“Very dense forests” - 3%, “moderately dense forests” and “open forests” represent 9% each.
• Electrification of transportation: Indian railways is expected to go fully electric by 2024 and Transportation systems, including local transportation look set to go electric.

Problems confronting India’s climate actions

• Issues in the solar industry:
  • Cancellations of several auctions by the government.
  • Tough markets and poor regulation: Market for rooftop solar, which was expected to grow to 40 GW by 2022, has fallen flat with an installed capacity of only 6 GW.
  • Project delays: About 90 renewable projects amounting to 39.4 GW that facing delays due to several reasons. - The Central Energy Authority (CEA).
  • Little choice for prosumers (producer-consumers) in Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs): as they mostly only offer net or gross metering, and these methods are ineffective.
    • Solution: Installation of smart solar meters with more expensive metering during peak hours, which will incentivise the consumer and the discoms to actively push more affluent Indians to adopt rooftop solar.
• Dominance of coal: Coal still powers close to 72 % of India’s electricity requirement; Even if India achieves 2022 targets, coal would still account for 65 % of the energy mix.
  • Further, the government recently opened 41 coal blocks for commercial mining to the private sector to address India’s excessive reliance on imported coal (30 %).
• Financial distress of the Distribution Companies (DISCOMS): Prevents modernisation, like in the thermal industry, which is plagued by inefficient tariff setting, expensive PPAs and unsustainable cross-subsidies.
• Declining “moderately dense” forest cover: despite overall gains. (Only Assam and Tripura in Northeast have not seen a decline in forest cover)
  • Declining forests in sensitive biodiversity hotspots: It is estimated that a third of biodiversity have already lost due to human expansion in the Western Ghats.

Conclusion: India should take bold action to meet its objectives by 2047 or before. e.g. Plan a green recovery from the current COVID-19 crisis to ensure a just and sustainable growth for its population.