Paris Climate Accord - India’s track record so far
A Quick Guide
I came across this fantastic website (https://climateactiontracker.org) that keeps track of how countries are meeting their Paris 2015 Accord commitments. The following chart taken from the website shows that India is on-track not only to meet it commitments to keep the climate under +2 C, but also outperform it.
Below chart taken from the site depicts our progress. Few things to highlight in that chart:
- Our 2020 pledge (as per Copenhagen Accord signed in 2009) was to be below 20-25% below 2005 emissions intensity of GDP. We are clearly on track to achieve that.
- For 2030, the estimated emissions based on expected GDP is 6,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per annum & the NDC target we set for ourselves was to have at least 40% of our energy mix be renewable. We expect to reach that target sometime in mid 2020’s itself. Further analysis in the next section.
A more detailed plan of how India plans to change its energy mix can be found in the National Energy Plan, 2018.
As of Mar, 2017 India had 57.244 GW of installed capacity of renewable power. Government of India has set an installed capacity target of 175 GW & 275 GW from renewable energy sources by 2022 & 2027 respectively. This includes 100 GW from solar, 60 GW from wind, 10 GW from biomass and 5 GW from small hydro power.
Within the target of 100 GW for solar energy, 40 GW would be from solar roof tops and the balance 60 GW would be from off the ground large and medium scale projects.
This is shown in the below chart:
As it can be seen from the chart & above table, total renewable energy as % of total energy will be more than 40% latest by 2026. This should keep us in compliance with Paris Accord of keeping temperatures below 2%. But on the other hand, we see that absolute energy production from non renewable resources (primarily coal) is set to also increase by 40 GW between 2017-2026. It is shown in below table:
If this increase can be done through renewable instead of fossil fuels, then India will punch above it’s height & target for 1.5 C reduction. This will make India a shining example for other countries to follow in our fight against climate change.
This is completely doable as well, since India’s total solar energy potential is 749 GW & wind energy potential is 103 GW.