India wants to double coal production by 2030 – 01/09/2024 – Environment

While climate diplomats at COP28, the UN climate conference in Dubai, debated a deal to transition away from fossil fuels last December, India faced another energy dilemma: it needed to quickly build more energy capacity.

“To meet growing demand,” the Indian government said on December 11 that it expects to approximately double the country’s coal production, reaching 1.5 billion tonnes by 2030. Later, energy minister Raj Kumar Singh laid out plans to add 88 gigawatts of thermal power plants by 2032. The vast majority of them will burn coal.

The move to invest more in the world’s most polluting fuel — one of the biggest contributors to global warming — may seem contradictory for the South Asian country, which is highly vulnerable to climate impacts.

However, as elections approach in April and May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is eager to avoid any risk of power shortages. Along with record heatwaves, India has seen huge spikes in electricity demand over two consecutive years.

“India’s policy is to build everything. Promote renewable energy, but also promote coal and other fossil fuels,” said Sandeep Pai, director of the climate-focused organization Swaniti Global. “The justification is an increase in energy demand.”

However, when it comes to renewable energy, India is not building enough to meet its ambitious target of 500 gigawatts of clean energy capacity by 2030. Solar and wind power installation rates in recent years are about a third than necessary, according to energy research center BloombergNEF (BNEF).

There is a combination of factors that affect the implementation of renewable energy. The main reasons, according to Rohit Gadre of BNEF, are the misaligned incentives of state-owned electricity distributors, the difficulty of acquiring the necessary land, and the lack of consistent policies at the federal and state levels. As a result, even with the increase in demand for energy, there is not enough interest among private investors to accelerate investments in renewable energy.

That doesn’t mean things will be easy for coal, which faces similar challenges in attracting new investment. “Solar and wind power plants can be built quickly, while coal plants will take much longer and at higher costs,” said Vibhuti Garg, South Asia director at the Institute for Analysis of Energy Economics and Finance, a non-profit organization. profitable.

Neither Pai nor Gadre expect India to meet the coal targets it has set. BNEF’s economic transition scenario predicts that India’s coal use will peak at 1.1 billion tonnes before 2040.

Ultimately, India needs investment in its energy infrastructure as the lower-middle-income country seeks economic growth. Per capita electricity consumption in India is far below that of developed countries or even China. And India is still far from using its fair share of the global carbon budget.

India, like other major developing countries, also needs more incentives to choose a greener path. Over the past three years, the G7 has developed the Just Energy Transition Partnership to help South Africa, Vietnam and Indonesia reduce their use of coal. These agreements were complicated and have not yet shown results.

While the world may have agreed to transition away from fossil fuels at COP28, it has not yet found effective ways to help countries like India switch from coal, environment minister Bhupendra Yadav suggested on Monday at the launch from the book entitled “Modi Energizing A Green Future” (in free translation, “Modi Energizing a Green Future”).

He also said that this issue does not need to be just about rich countries distributing money, but better policies, technology transfer and training are also needed.

Pai echoed that view. “The world needs to offer something to India to avoid carbonization,” he said. “The main challenge is that the world really doesn’t offer much to India or any developing country.”