Title photo above: Jharia coalfield, India. The fields have suffered a coal bed fire since at least 1916.
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Figure 1
According to Saurav Anand writing in ETEnergyWorld:
'India, China and Indonesia are set to drive global coal consumption and seaborne trade to new highs in 2025, challenging earlier predictions of a decline. The three countries will collectively account for around 70% of global coal consumption and trade.'
This bleak outlook has sobering implications, not least that without a massive reduction of production and consumption in these countries, there can be little hope of achieving net zero by 2050, and absolutely no hope of achieving the secondary Paris target of keeping global temperature well below +2°C.
So what of India, currently the world's most populous country. India's demand for coal has been increasing in recent years, driven by strong economic growth and population growth. Coal is a major source of energy in India, and the country is still reliant on it to meet peak electricity demand. In 2024, India's coal demand was projected to reach 1.2 billion tonnes, a 10% increase from the previous year. The demand for coal in India is expected to peak between 2030 and 2035. Emissions from coal generation in January 2024 hit 104.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), while emissions from all power sources hit 107.5 million tons, which marked a record in both categories and a 10% rise from January 2023. There are currently 47 CFPPs in the planning stage, and 25 under construction. That's 72 new coal-fired power plants in a world facing a sixth global mass extinction (not my words, but those of 90-year-old Dr Jane Goodall.)
In stark contrast is an article written by Dr Fatih Birol, Executive Director and Amitabh Kant, CEO of the National Institution for Transforming India, entitled: India’s clean energy transition is rapidly underway, benefiting the entire world. In it they say:
India’s sheer size and its huge scope for growth means that its energy demand is set to grow by more than that of any other country in the coming decades. In a pathway to net zero emissions by 2070, we estimate that most of the growth in energy demand this decade would already have to be met with low-carbon energy sources. It therefore makes sense that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced more ambitious targets for 2030, including installing 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, reducing the emissions intensity of its economy by 45%, and reducing a billion tonnes of CO2.
This article's title includes the phrase: 'clean energy transition rapidly underway'. And yet the authors admit that India is on a pathway to net zero by 2070. 2070 is too late. Far too late. But read on.
These targets are formidable, but the good news is that the clean energy transition in India is already well underway. It has overachieved its commitment made at COP 21- Paris Summit by already meeting 40% of its power capacity from non-fossil fuels- almost nine years ahead of its commitment and the share of solar and wind in India’s energy mix have grown phenomenally. Owing to technological developments, steady policy support and a vibrant private sector solar power plants are cheaper to build than coal ones. Renewable electricity is growing at a faster rate in India than any other major economy, with new capacity additions on track to double by 2026. The country is also one of the world’s largest producers of modern bioenergy and has big ambitions to scale up its use across the economy. The IEA expects India to overtake Canada and China in the next few years to become the third largest ethanol market worldwide after the United States and Brazil.
The authors are right in saying that India's renewable electricity is growing quickly but beware of terms such as 'power capacity'. This is the theoretical maximum amount of power that a could be generated. The above article claims India has reached 40% of power capacity from non-fossil fuels. In reality, only 19.5% of its electricity came from renewable sources in 2023. I should add that India, as of November 2024, has 24 nuclear reactors in operation in 8 nuclear power plants, with a total installed capacity of 8,180 MW. Nuclear power, while not being renewable, is classed as non-fossil fuel and at least some of the claimed 40% derives from these power plants.
Let's compare India's renewable electricity generation with the other major coal producing/consuming nations:
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The claim that 'renewable electricity is growing at a faster rate in India than any other major economy' may be true, (China and the US would challenge that), but as stated above, renewable accounted for just 19.5% of the country's total electricity generation. As of 2023, India's total electricity demand was 1,957TWh with just 381TWh generated by renewables.
India has a population of 1.46 billion, 21 times that of the UK. It is a vast country in the midst of rapid development which is transforming the lives of millions of its poorest communities. Peak electricity demand is the challenge. India's demand for electricity surges in the evening putting huge pressure on the network. India's answer to providing this massive lift in demand is building more CFPPs. But this policy is coming under fire with many in the energy sector forecasting that these new plants will be standing idle, scarcely used since, as the article above points out, solar power plants are cheaper to build than coal ones.
The elephant in the room - an increasingly visible elephant - is India's target date for net zero. 2070. The UN is absolutely clear about the need for every one of the G20 countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union) to reach net zero by 2050. For India to delay this date by 20 years, and in so doing, setting an example to other G20 countries, is a recipe for disaster. Space doesn't permit a detailed discussion here of India's unwillingness to detail exactly how it intends to reduce current carbon emissions and why it requires an additional 20 years to reach net zero. Visit Climate Action Tracker's India page here to read a clear analysis of India's progress to net zero.
TITLE PHOTO: By TripodStories- AB - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,