Four promises to keep: How achievable are India's 2030 climate goals

Are the four near-term targets very ambitious? Business Standard maps the country's performance so far, on these fronts

With India having set itself on a path to the loterm target of becoming a net-zero economy by 2070, Prime Minister Narendra Modi committed to the world four distinct near-term targets to be achieved by 2030: (1) improving renewable power generation capacity, (2) greening India’s energy use, (3) cutting emissions explicitly, and (4) reducing the economy’s dependence on carbon emitting fossil fuels.

How has India performed on these fronts till now? And how achievable--or steep--does the target look from this point in time? Abhishek Waghmare & Ishaan Gera explain.

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#Mission2030 Target 1: Take India’s non-fossil energy capacity to 500 GW

Of the 388 Gw of installed power capacity in India today, nearly 150 GW is from renewable sources, including hydroelectric power. It has taken us seven years to double the capacity from 2014. The previous doubling was achieved in eight years.

Now, to achieve 500 Gw by 2030, India needs to add 350 GW in nine years. For that, we need to double the capacity in less than five years, according to back of the envelope calculations. The annual trend has been calculated using compounding the growth rate from 2022 to 2030.

#Mission2030 Target 2: Meet 50% of energy requirement from renewable energy

Today, India produces 24 per cent of the electricity generation from renewable sources. To go from 24 per cent to 50 per cent in nine years is a challenge, as it would require quadrupling of renewable power generation in a decade. This is the most conservative scenario, wherein the generation from fossil fuels is considered steady at 2019 levels. If that increases every year--which is more likely than not--renewable power generation would need to increase by a higher multiple by 2030, probably five or six times that of today.

The improvement till now has been tepid: the share of renewables in power generation was 19 per cent in 2010, and 17 per cent in 2000 (The share was higher in 1990 due to larger share of hydro power and relatively underdeveloped thermal power stations).

#Mission2030 Target 3: Reduce total projected carbon emissions by 1bn tonnes

Modi also announced a direct cut in carbon emissions in this decade, and promised that India’s total emissions till 2030 would be one billion tonnes lesser than the current projection. The Climate Action Tracker projects India’s annual emissions at 4 billion tonnes of CO2e in 2030.

Officials from the Ministry of Environment Forests and Climate Change confirmed to Business Standard that the reduction is cumulative over the period to 2030. 

Reduction of one billion tonnes over nine years would require--mathematically--a reduction of 111 million tonnes each year. This would cut India’s annual emissions by 2.5-3 per cent by 2030.

#Mission2030 Target 4: Reduce carbon intensity of its economy by less than 45%

In its voluntary pledge in 2010, India had envisaged that the emission intensity of its economy would reduce by 25 per cent from the 2005 levels by the year 2020. In its own assessment, India found, and reported that intensity was cut by 24 per cent in the year 2016 itself, way ahead of the target.

In the 2016 Paris agreement, India planned to reduce the intensity by 35 per cent (from 2005 levels) by 2030. In Glasgow 2021, PM Modi made the target further ambitious by announcing that India will cut the carbon intensity by 45 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030.