New Government’s Agenda: Vision 2030 for India

The 2024 general elections in India came at a time when the country faced bouts of climate-linked adversities and challenges. Small wonder that climate change has entered the election manifestos of almost all the contesting political parties. The Bharatiya Janata Party has acknowledged the current shift in energy sources by declaring that it would continue to raise the share of renewable energy in the country’s electricity mix. The Indian National Congress has pledged to set up a “green new deal investment programme” to promote the renewable energy sector and create green jobs, and an “environment protection and climate change authority” to enforce national and state climate action plans. Policymakers are also coming to terms with the fact that India’s development must be in line with the reality of climate change.

The fact is that extreme and changing weather patterns, rising sea levels and soaring temperatures can undo a lot of development progress and economic growth achieved over the past decades; they can pose a serious threat to food security, spur a surge in disease outbreaks, fuel migration and even trigger conflicts. Thus, the new government has an arduous task of ensuring economic growth while tackling the effects of climate change. One way to achieve this is by ensuring transition to clean energy.

Move on energy transition

India has made great strides in the field of renewable energy, with non-fossil fuels, excluding nuclear power, making up 43.12 per cent of the total installed capacity, according to the India Climate and Energy Dashboard by Union government think tank NITI Aayog. Installed capacity of solar power has increased twelvefold in the past eight years, says data with the dashboard as on March 31, 2024. This means India is on course to secure 50 per cent of its power capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030—a commitment made under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

This target requires a sweeping transition plan. Currently, despite making up 43.12 per cent of the country’s energy capacity, non-fossil fuel sources only generate 23.4 per cent of the total electricity, as per the dashboard. While the share of coal is projected to decline in the overall energy mix, integrating greater shares of renewable power into the grid will be key. For this, necessary investments in grid flexibility, transmission and distribution infrastructure and energy storage technologies like pumped hydro and batteries will be crucial.

The government must work to bridge the gap between states that are swiftly adopting renewables and those trailing behind. It is equally important to address systemic issues like the ailing health of distribution companies. This must be done while maintaining affordability of energy.

Plan for decarbonisation 

By 2019, India reduced the emissions intensity of its GDP (gross domestic product) by 33 per cent of the levels recorded in 2005. This means that the country is on track to achieve its 2030 target to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 45 per cent. At the same time, India aims to grow its economy over eight times its present size by 2047. This means the country needs a formidable sector-wise decarbonisation plan aligned with domestic development imperatives. The country submitted a Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategy (LT-LEDS) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2022 with guidelines for different sectors. But we need detailed sectoral emissions reduction plans with short-, medium-, and long-term targets.

India should proactively identify the gaps in implementation of decarbonisation measures, as well as the finance and technologies needed. Solutions and institutional interventions should ideally be determined at the domestic level and guide global financial and technical support for the country, rather than the other way around. This can harness multiple co-benefits, from alleviating the impacts of air pollution by reducing thermal power dependence to addressing the risk of stranded assets. It will also help lower the need for climate adaptation by avoiding the worst impacts of the climate crisis, and minimise the blow to economic and trade competitiveness in a changing global trade and climate regime.

Build climate resilience

As per India’s Third National Communication to UNFCCC, submitted in December 2023, the country needs Rs 56.68 lakh crore (US $679 billion) until 2030 for climate adaptation. Mechanisms such as the National Adaptation Fund for Climate Change are aimed at enabling the states and Union Territories that are particularly vulnerable to climate impacts to meet the cost of adaptation. However, budgetary allocations for the fund have not kept pace with the growing needs—the past two financial years have not seen any budgetary allocation at all. While there have been growing allocations for mitigation mechanisms in recent years, it is important for the government to prioritise adaptation needs of the country.

To pinpoint adaptation gaps, thorough research on socio-economic impacts is vital. In the Third National Communication, the Union government highlights that most risk assessment studies focus solely on hazards. Improving adaptation research requires a standardised framework and methodology to evaluate climate risks, vulnerability and effectiveness of development programmes through government investment, community impact studies, building the capacity of local administrations and technological interventions to boost resilience, particularly in vulnerable sectors like medium and small enterprises and agriculture.

Address geopolitical issues 

The country’s climate ambitions are also susceptible to various external pressures, from the geopolitics of energy and industry to the global competition to control the supply chains for critical minerals and green technologies. Resource realism is at the forefront of international politics.

Take the case of rare earth metals, crucial for the production of low-carbon technologies. China produces nearly 85 per cent of the world’s rare earth oxides, from which rare earth elements are obtained, according to the International Energy Agency. Countries are increasingly recognising the significant supply risk posed by such excessive concentration of production and processing. This risk extends to the supply chains of solar equipment and electric vehicles, the majority of which are concentrated in China. The West is shielding itself from this onslaught through subsidies with which India cannot compete. The West is also resorting to mechanisms such as the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which may hurt India’s trade competitiveness. Through CBAM, the EU proposes to tax imports of certain products based on their carbon footprint, which will have major economic impacts for countries like India that export carbon-intensive goods like iron, steel and aluminium to the bloc.

In light of these challenges, the country’s foreign policy should prioritise resource security in the domestic green transformation. Policy coherence and clear strategies for onshore manufacturing of key technology components, diversification of supply chains for raw materials and appropriate challenging of parochial trade actions masquerading as climate protection will be key.

In a climate-risked and conflict-ridden world, India has a unique opportunity to fill the current vacuum in climate leadership by converging its international rhetoric at climate forums with clear and bold domestic action.

This was first published in the 1-15 June, 2024 print edition of Down To Earth