Coal may singe net-zero journey as India readies updated climate pledge

Indian policymakers are drawing up an updated climate change pledge to be presented to the UN by early November. The world's watching closely

India’s international climate commitments are tied to its domestic policies, much like other nations’ — so much so that the government has tried to time reforms in the electricity and emission sectors with its periodic pledges on emission reduction initiatives to the United Nations. But what threatens to muddle a new round of commitments that promise to scrub the country’s skies partly free of pollutants by 2035 is the rebound of coal as a primary fuel of development. 

India plans to submit its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) to the UNFCCC, the global climate body, by COP 30, the latest edition of the annual climate meeting that is to be held in Brazil next month, a senior government official said. The NDC, a document containing emission reduction targets and action plans —  will cover the five-year period ending 2035, after the current NDC expires in 2030. 

New Delhi has made repeated stabs at reforming the power sector, the country’s biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and on carbon trading mechanisms, both in 2022, when India submitted its first NDC under the Paris Accord, an international climate treaty, and this year prior to the second NDC. Power sector reforms have faced a pushback but the country is ready to launch a Carbon Credit Trading Scheme next year. 

“The upcoming Indian Carbon Market is expected to accelerate decarbonisation for the Indian industries and other relevant sectors,” said Pallavi Das and Vaibhav Chaturvedi from Council On Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), a New Delhi-based leading global climate think tank.

 

But, unlike in the previous climate round, coal threatens to cloud the prospects of India’s new NDC. In 2022, the country’s new draft power generation plan proposed to add an “additional coal-based capacity of up to 28 Gw by the financial year 2032.” Current plans foresee boosting coal additions to well over 80 Gw. 

UK-based publisher Energy Intelligence quoted petroleum secretary Pankaj Jain telling an audience in London that coal will remain very significant [in India’s energy mix] for 10-15 years, even though the share of renewables will grow. 

Smokestacks from coal-fired generators contributed the most to India’s 3 billion tonnes in carbon dioxide emissions from energy production in 2024, accounting for an 8 per cent share of global carbon dioxide emissions, and over twice the share of India’s GDP in the global economy. India’s on-year emission growth of 4 per cent in 2024 was faster than China’s 1.2 per cent and America’s decline of 0.8 per cent. 

It is in this context that Indian policymakers will draw up a new NDC, which is nine months over a February deadline. 

“India should focus on more ambitious emission intensity targets and clearly define the year in which its emissions are expected to peak, in line with its 2070 net-zero commitment,’’ said Gaurav Upadhyay, Energy Finance Specialist, India Sustainable Finance for Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), a US thinktank. 

“Establishing a clear peak year is critical to charting a practical and transparent pathway toward net-zero emissions.” 

“The key point from our research is that the 500 GW target puts India on track to peak power sector emissions before 2030,’’ said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst, Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a leading global energy thinktank. “It would be important to extend that target to maintain the same rate of clean power additions out to 2035. This is also essential to support India's ambition in building up the domestic manufacturing base for solar power and other key clean energy technologies.” 

Unlike most developed nations that target absolute greenhouse gas emissions, India measures carbon intensity levels, a stepdown approach but more in line with India’s development metrics. Carbon intensity measures emissions per unit of GDP, a metric that does not directly constrain emissions as a whole. 

New commitment 

Under the Paris climate accord, a legally binding treaty on climate change that intends to keep temperature gains well-below 2C from pre-industrial levels by the end of this century, participating nations must submit NDCs every five years, with the hope that the climate ambitions will increase over time. 

That process is now in its third round with a February deadline pushed to September. Over 60 countries including China announced or submitted NDCs, covering half of global emissions, but India, Indonesia, Korea Mexico and the EU are yet to do so, UN records show. The US, the world’s second-largest emitter, has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. 

India’s ongoing NDC, also delayed by two years, came in the form of a terse four-page document on 26 August, 2022, offering no clarity on sector-specific goals or financing. “The delay in updating India’s NDC likely reflects complex policy decisions and the need for coordination across sectors,” Upadhyay said. Besides sectoral ministries and the environment ministry, the Prime Minister’s Office and the external affairs department play a key role, a senior official said. 

The world’s third-biggest emitter committed to reducing the “emissions intensity” of its GDP to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 in the 2022 update to its first (pre-Paris accord) NDC, submitted in 2015, which targeted a 33-35 per cent cut. India also committed to half its installed generating capacity to be made up of non-fossil fuel sources by 2030. 

India has already achieved generating capacity targets. Fresh analysis by the CEEW projects that India’s energy sector emission intensity could decrease by 48–57 per cent by 2030 compared with 2005 levels. India’s emission intensity has typically reduced at a rate of 1-2 per cent annually in the past but action on decarbonisation has picked up amid schemes like Renewable Energy Certificates and Perform Achieve Trade, Das said. 

China’s NDC 

Comparisons with China’s NDC are inevitable. China’s plans to cut economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions by 7-10 per cent falls far short of what would be required to align with the Paris Agreement of at least 30 per cent from 2024 levels, said Belinda Schappe, a China policy analyst at CREA. China’s target for solar and wind capacity of 3,600 Gw by 2035 would mean a sharp slowdown from the current annual additions of 360 Gw, Schappe said. Also, China has not defined a peak level for emissions, leaving space for pollutants to grow. 

Schappe and other experts contend that China’s targets will be substantially overachieved. “This NDC should be seen as a floor, not a ceiling, for China’s ambition,” said Myllyvirta. 

What’s also noteworthy in China’s new pledge is an absolute target for all greenhouse gases, a departure from the approach of targeting carbon intensity levels. However, India will continue to stick with emission intensity targets. But achieving net zero emissions will also require a long-term strategy that captures its decarbonisation plans, something that was due after the previous NDC in 2022, and is still missing.