Every summer, as India’s biggest cities resort to ‘load shedding’ to keep pace with the demand for power, its residents cuss and sweat, waiting for the comforting whirr of the fan and the hum of the air conditioner that allows them to stay insulated from the reality that millions of others live with - a life without electricity.
As our society transforms and our cities get more and more attractive to migrants seeking ‘the good life’, our urbanisation experiment gets impetus. Everyone wants to be on the grid and some, like those in Dharnai village in Bihar, get to do so by harnessing the flood of sunshine that defines their lives for most of the year. Dharnai became India’s first solar-powered village in July last year, literally lighting up the lives of people here who only knew life in the dark.
That’s the India story, one of the changing dynamics that renewable energy brings with it, turning lives around and allowing people to be part of the new green growth story. And that is the fulcrum on which India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) rest, as it shares its plans and commitments, going into the Paris climate summit this December.
This is a crucial year for climate diplomacy with the Conference of Parties (COP) in Paris being seen as key in drumming up a global outcome. This is also the deadline by which a new agreement to succeed the contentious Kyoto protocol is to be put in place. Experts say the world needs an equitable climate agreement that will limit global temperature rise to below the 2C mark, or else the results will be catastrophic, as is already being witnessed in vulnerable pockets around the world. This time though, the dialogue has shifted to what each country can put on the table in the form of pledges of INDC rather than just put absolute reduction figures.
In the INDC that were shared with the UN climate secretariat in September, India spelt out its three-pronged strategy. Firstly, to reduce emission intensity by 33% -35% by 2030 from 2005 levels. Secondly, a strong renewable energy programme with 40% of its electricity from non-fossil fuels by 2030. Lastly, the creation of a carbon sink that has the capacity to sequester 2.5 billion to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide through afforestation.
While the plan seems ambitious and a step in the right direction, how does India plan to achieve this through its existing and new policies and programmes? As environment minister Prakash Javadekar said while releasing the document in New Delhi, “This is a clarion call for climate justice for both poor countries and poor people. We are not part of the problem but we want to be part of the solution.”
Lower emissions intensity
India’s economy is growing rapidly, yet almost 50% of the country remains to be urbanised and millions don’t even have access to electricity. So, the INDC reflect this paradox and are framed in terms of reduction in emissions intensity rather than absolute emissions like the US or the European Union. China, like India, has announced emission intensity cuts and a peaking year, given the focused development path it is currently on.
Emissions intensity is the amount of greenhouse gases emitted per unit of GDP. While India’s commitment focuses on cutting emissions intensity in 2030 to a third below 2005 levels, the fact that it still has to grow means there is no running away from rising emissions during this period of development.
“The emissions intensity target is conservative when benchmarked against modelling studies,” said Navroz Dubash, senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in India. “It is roughly consistent with India’s Cancun pledge for 2020 and suggests that the real action lies in sectoral measures. The real benchmark for India’s INDC is whether it can avoid a lock-in to a high-carbon future.”
And industry seems to agree. “What India has agreed to is to reduce the energy intensity, and not energy use, and that is achievable,” says J.J. Irani, former MD of Tata Steel. “India is a developing nation, and all development requires energy. However, by 2030, we have committed to lower energy intensity by 33%, meaning that we will take 33% less energy to make something, compared to making it today.”
Focus on renewables
While the INDC spells out that coal will continue to dominate power generation in future, one of the biggest takeaways from the current pledge is India’s very ambitious renewables plan. In order to stay on the current growth trajectory, India has no choice but to expand quickly, give its people access to basics such as electricity, and be sustainable while doing so.
The renewables pie just got bigger as India stated that it will increase solar capacity to roughly 100 GW, double its wind capacity to 60 GW by 2022 and increase nuclear capacity to 63 GW by 2030. The idea is to install 175 GW of electricity from renewable energy such as solar, wind, hydro and others by 2022.
Clean energy sources, such as solar and wind, are getting cheaper. Ten years ago, solar power cost Rs 17 (17 pence) per unit, while today it is close to Rs 7. It has also come closer to global energy prices. “The gap between clean energy and fossil energy is narrowing. The target that India has looks difficult, but is achieveable,” said Irani.
Former climate adviser to the UN climate secretariat, Mukul Sanwal said, “Consumption, rather than production, will be crucial. By 2030, we are likely to use less coal than China and the US. People are discounting hydro power in India but that will be another big area of development.”
Creating carbon sinks
While the creation of a carbon sink could help with the emissions situation, this part of the INDC remains tricky and most experts feel it won’t really work. “Reducing forests to being just carbon sinks is a problem as you can’t just put a singular value to them,” said forest governance expert Kanchi Kohli. “They are far more valuable than just providing carbon sequestration. You can keep creating these plantation-type forests, but they are of no use, and will always be culled for economic use like the creation of ports or for mining, and so on. The provision in the INDC ignores the complexity of forest management and seems short-sighted.”
This is a view echoed by other experts as well. “While the INDC is ambitious, forestry is a challenging area,” said Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general of the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment. “When we talk of creating five billion to seven billion hectares of new forests, we need to keep issues of biodiversity, land and community in mind. Given the track record of the forest department, I am not hopeful this will be managed efficiently.”
Finance and technology
India says its INDC will cost roughly $2.5 trillion to be implemented at 2014-15 rates, and this is much higher than what other countries have calculated. While on the surface of it, India’s INDC may have a very high price tag on it, given its large and growing population, it is not exorbitant. According to Javadekar, “We are putting pressure on developed countries and have asked them when their financial commitment will come through as promised in the green climate fund. We must give technology an impetus, whatever is critical for clean energy. More aggressive action on India’s part is possible if technology is available or else we can’t commit to doing more.”
According to Arunabha Ghosh, founder of the Council for Energy, Environment and Water, “The government is already spending on combating the adverse effects of climate change through its renewables programme. The Union Budget of 2013-14 pegs the actual expenditure on development programmes relevant to climate change adaptation at Rs 760 billion ($13 billion). Given India’s 300 million-plus people lacking access to electricity and the many development challenges, committing to more in the absence of support could risk its development imperatives.”
Tulsi Tanti, chairman of wind power company Suzlon, said meeting the government’s renewable energy target of 175 GW by 2022 requires improved availability of grid and land infrastructure at the state level. “State governments need to invest in that area well in advance based on available wind resources in the state,” he said.
With so much riding on individual pledges by each country, India’s clear, generous and detailed INDC clearly show that the focus is not on numbers but on an overall lifestyle change and a growing awareness that while India will not sell itself short, it recognises the need for sustainable growth and is doing enough domestically to meet its set targets by 2030.
- Additional reporting by M.G. Arun