Why India’s green façade is cracking by Christophe Jaffrelot , Hemal Thakker : November 11, 2021 https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/narendra-modi-net-zero-carbon-emissions-cop-26-climate-conference-7617289/
Christophe Jaffrelot, Hemal Thakker write: Even though it has invested in renewable energy and announced a net-zero target, there is a gap between the announcements and the ground reality, as is evident from the promotion of coal.
To achieve its new goals, it has a target of achieving 40 GW of green energy from the rooftop solar sector by 2022, but it has not been able to achieve even 20 per cent of that so far. In the transport sector, India has targeted a 30 per cent share of electric vehicles (EV) in new sales for 2030. However, according to the Climate Action Tracker, to be compatible with the Paris Agreement, the share of EV sales needs to be between 80-95 per cent by 2030, and 100 per cent by 2040.
India also needs to cut down subsidies to the fossil fuel industry drastically. While in the past seven years, the country has invested Rs 5.2 trillion in renewable energy, the investment in fossil fuel industry, though down by (only) 4 per cent from 2015-19, was Rs 245 trillion. Worse, coal production is estimated to increase to one billion tonnes by 2024 from 716 million tonnes in 2020-21. India is already home to the second-largest coal-fired power plant pipeline in the world. According to the Central Electricity Authority, coal capacity is projected to increase from 202GW in 2021 to 266GW by 2029-30.