Page 4 - AsiaElec Week 04 2021

AsiaElec COMMENTARY AsiaElec

India’s emissions conundrum as

foreign investors show interest

India’s power sector offers global investment opportunities, but crucial reforms
are needed, writes Richard Lockhart

INDIA INDIA is the world’s third-largest emitter of move the bottom 20% of the population to the
carbon dioxide, accounting for 2.46bn tonnes in low-expenditure category will thus cause a rise
WHAT: 2019-2020, according to Carbon Brief, or 6.8% of only 1.97% in carbon emissions.
India’s per capital of the total global emissions, behind China and Moving its middle-expenditure families to
emissions are low the US. the higher expenditure group will result in a
However, by other metrics India is at the fore- 10% rise in carbon emissions. If all Indians start
WHY: front of reducing emissions, while its population consuming as the rich do, there will be a nearly
Access-to-power levels of 1.3bn ensures that per capita emissions are low 50% rise in emissions.
are still low, and the poor at 1.91 tonnes, compared with 16.06 tonnes in The study found that in India’s low and medi-
consume little power the US and 16.31 tonnes in Australia. um-level expenditure households, the carbon
At the same time, the government is invest- footprint is primarily driven by consumption
WHAT NEXT: ing heavily in solar and wind power, and aims to of electricity (0.19 tonnes/capita), food (0.12
Foreign investors are lessen the country’s dependence on coal power. tonnes/capita) and consumables (0.07 tonnes/
arriving, but structural capita).
and market reforms are Carbon footprint Electricity consumption caused the max-
needed to exploit India’s Within India, the country’s highest levels of ine- imum household carbon footprints across all
green expansion quality and large off-grid population in rural socio-economic groups, the study calculated,
and slum urban areas mean that the top 20% ranging from 26% in low-expenditure house-
of high-expenditure households in India are holds to 36% among the rich.
responsible for causing seven times the green- Electricity is the biggest driver of India’s car-
house emissions traceable to the poor. bon emissions due to its reliance on coal-based
At the same time, per capita energy con- power plants: Coal accounts for 74% of India’s
sumption of 0.44 tonnes of oil equivalent [toe] electricity generation and was the source of
per capita is still only around one third of the one third of the country’s total greenhouse gas
world average, according to Indian government (GHG) emissions.
figures.
New research from the Japan-based Research Shifts needed in energy, food policy
Institute for Humanity and Nature, published For the Indian government, policies to limit
in the journal Global Environmental Change, consumption across all levels of society, espe-
showed that the mean household carbon foot- cially the richest, must be accompanied by
print was 0.56 tonnes per person per year. How- effort to promote renewables energy and energy
ever, this figure is only 0.19 tonnes per capita efficiency.
among the poor, earning less than INR140 ($1.9) Here the government has set a number of
per day, and 1.32 tonnes per capita among the goals, such as increasing the share of non-fos-
richest 20%. sil fuel energy in its total energy mix to 40% by
The study identified that food and electricity 2030.
are the two areas of spending that account for Alongside this, independent climate policy
most emissions in India across socio-economic tracker Climate Action Tracker (CAT) has said
groups. that India’s emissions intensity should drop
“The study shows that rich Indians are con- to 37-39% below 2005 levels by 2030, largely
suming more of all types of goods and hence spurred by strong investments in solar and wind
have a larger carbon footprint. The poor, on power.
the other hand, consume very little but bear the This would bring the country into line with
maximum brunt of the climate crisis, whether reducing global warming to 1.5-2°C by 2030, as
in the form of heat waves, cyclones, floods and called for by the Paris agreement.
other extreme weather events,” said Ulka Kelkar, However, India did not update its Paris
director, climate programme, World Resources Agreement Nationally Determined Contribu-
Institute, India. tion (NDC) by the end of 2020, joining China as
Poverty eradication measures that seek to the only two major Asian emitters not to do so.

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