India Steps into the Sun
Before Setting out....
When it comes to energy and climate, India at first glance seems like an also-ran. It’s a huge consumer of energy, but not nearly as big as the two largest, the United States and China. It’s a substantial emitter of greenhouse gases — coming in third globally in recent years — but nothing like numbers one and two, China and the United States. In per capita terms — the amount of energy used and greenhouse gases emitted on average for each of India’s 1.3 billion people — Indian’s profile is more developing nation than developed.
And yet India may prove to be the critical country in determining the world’s success in transitioning to a decarbonized energy system, reaching net zero emissions, and surviving the international climate change challenge.
The reason comes down to a single word: growth. Faster than any other big country, India and its appetite for energy will grow. To be fair, it must grow. India’s population, already four times the size of the U.S., is expected to surpass China’s by 2025. Indians are super young compared to the populations of either of those. Almost half of them under the age of 25, compared to over 35 for both the U.S. and China. As a group, Indians are only just entering what should be their economically most productive years. Like everybody else on the planet, they yearn to improve their lives and the lives of their children.
That will mean consuming more energy — to light, heat and cool their homes, transport themselves to and from jobs, entertain themselves when they’re not working and manufacture more of the stuff of modern life, from cars to smart phones. And unlike in the United States or China, a huge share of those Indians start from an energy consumption base of little or nothing. A group roughly equal the total population of the United States still has only spotty access to electricity, or none at all. That is changing fast, and will accelerate as the government — which has managed to bring at least minimal electrical grid access to every corner of the country in the past few years — prioritizes expanding energy accessibility throughout the day and Indians move from sparsely electrified rural areas to plugged-in cities.
For all these reasons and more, India will likely see the fastest growth in energy demand of any country over the next two decades, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The rise in electricity consumption alone could well require that India, home to an electricity market already the size of Canada’s, add generating capacity equal to all of Europe today by 2040.
Turbo-charged energy consumption like this is why India faces both peril and promise when it comes to climate change — and why those of us outside India should, indeed must, care. As India’s leaders are often quick to note, quite rightly, Indians have barely contributed to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere when compared to even much smaller industrialized nations. Even today, the emissions of most Indians are somewhere between tiny and infinitesimal.
Yet as a country India is huge. And growing. And like much of the rest of the world heavily dependent on fossil fuels, especially the dirtiest of them all, coal. Fossil fuels provide well over 80% of the country’s energy, with some two-thirds of electricity generation coming from coal. Under India’s current policy and growth path, the country’s carbon dioxide emissions could rise by half by 2040, more than any other country, according to the IEA.
That’s certainly the peril.
But there’s plenty of promise, too. First, all that growth ahead means India can pack an underappreciated wallop; it implies a vast potential to build better. The bulk of emissions — however much comes to pass in the end — will arise from buildings and factories that have yet to be built. They can be far more efficient, saving both emissions and money down the road. Likewise, the tiny fraction of Indians who own cars and air conditioners is sure to skyrocket over time. Those and other appliances can be manufactured to be efficient and electric, just as India has pioneered the introduction of hundreds of millions of highly efficient light bulbs.
The energy powering all these things can, increasingly, be clean energy. Increasingly, it is. India has shattered expectations for adding renewable energy, particularly solar. Despite a covid-induced deceleration last year, India has added solar capacity at a rate of about 60% annually over the past five years. Even with last year’s slowdown, India added five times as much solar capacity in 2019 than it did in 2015. The pace will accelerate again this year, with the IEA noting that India could add more solar capacity to its grid than any other country except China in the next two decades. As of now, India has poured more new government funds into clean energy than any other country, according to a recent tally by Energy Policy Tracker.
Promise and peril. It’s this tension that makes the growth factor tricky. Because even as solar soars, fossil fuel consumption goes up, too.
India’s fast rising energy consumption means renewables are easier to add. Displacing fossil fuels is another matter. Coal’s share of India’s energy mix hasn’t fallen. In fact, India built more coal-generating capacity than renewable capacity in recent years. India’s demand for oil, as well, could increase more than any other country between now and 2040, the IEA figures.
Now India, heading into a historic global climate conference this fall in Scotland, is considering a net zero emissions target. The year 2050 is the logical one, given that’s the target written into the 2015 Paris Accord, which this fall’s meeting is being convened to update. The Biden administration is expected to step up with such a commitment for the U.S. China recently committed to the year 2060.
That implies a rapid elimination of coal, which has woven itself deeply into the fabric of India’s political economy. No deeper than in industrialized nations, to be sure. But they’ve needed longer than a generation to whittle coal down to the point where the social costs of eliminating it can be manageably undertaken. Most also enriched themselves to the point where paying for this is, at least if undertaken equitably, is only uncomfortable as opposed to potentially debilitating.
Unlike many countries, India is firmly on track to surpass the voluntary commitment it made in Paris: reducing the emissions produced by each unit of economic growth, rather than cutting absolute emissions. But continuing with existing policies, India’s emissions could rise by half again by 2040 even with an 18-fold increase in solar capacity, according to the IEA.
India can’t easily put off the day when emissions themselves begin falling. Just as Indians will likely never get to burn their fair share of carbon-based fuels, they are being burdened sooner and eventually much more heavily than much of the rest of the world by the impacts of the climate change caused by fossil fuel combustion elsewhere and for others’ benefit. Rising sea levels are already wreaking havoc along parts of the subcontinent’s extensive coastlines. Rising temperatures are threatening livelihoods and lives. Disrupted monsoons are imperiling the food supply and sources of water.
So Indians will likely have to take on more than the rest of the world, unfair though that may be. But the rest of the world can also help — indeed must help, because we have a stake in their success. So far, the developed world has failed to come through on anything approaching the $100 billion in new funds promised to developing countries such as India at the Paris Accord summit in 2015. That needs to change. But beyond that promise, much more needs to happen to support and encourage India’s rapid transition to a low carbon economy.
In a nutshell, that’s why I’m traveling through India for much of the next six months: to have a look at the climate and energy challenges Indians are facing and in many cases meeting. And it’s why I’m starting this newsletter: to bring anyone interested along for the journey.
We’ll be on the ground in India within a few weeks, if all goes according to plan, and will use this space before then to provide some more context for the trip.
Join me!
