India must set a higher bar on clean energy targets

Why in the News

India met its 2015 Paris Agreement goals years early, and its new 2035 pledge again asks little beyond its current track. With the Hormuz crisis pushing oil above $100 a barrel and the 31st Conference of the Parties (COP31), the UN climate summit, approaching, tougher clean energy targets are now the cheaper and safer path.

What are India’s climate pledges, and how has it fared?

1. What it is: A Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is the target each country sets itself under the Paris Agreement to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, like a self-set exam target.
2. Capacity goal met early: India promised that 40% of its power capacity would be non-fossil by 2030. It got there nine years early.
3. Intensity goal met early: India pledged to cut emissions intensity, the carbon emitted per rupee of GDP, by about a third. It met that with a decade to spare.
4. The takeaway: Pledges met this early trail what India can deliver, so they no longer push it further.

What does the 2035 pledge promise, and why is it weak?

1. Capacity pledge: The March pledge promises 60% clean capacity, but India had already reached nearly 53% in February.
2. Intensity pledge: It promises a 47% cut in emissions intensity by 2035.
3. Why intensity misleads: Intensity measures emissions against output, so an economy that doubles and cuts intensity by 40% still emits 20% more.
4. No absolute limit: Most major economies, including China, have absolute emission limits. India is the largest emitter in the Paris Agreement without one.
5. Off the warming path: India’s targets have routinely fallen short of the 1.5°C warming limit. The UN declared that limit missed in September.

What do the pledges leave out?

1. More coal: India plans to grow coal capacity by 46% by 2035.
2. Capacity is not generation: Coal still generates over two-thirds of India’s electricity. Clean sources hold over half of installed capacity but supplied 29% of power last year.
3. Energy security: The Iran war has disrupted crude imports through Hormuz. Coal cannot fuel cars and kitchens, so cheap solar electrification is the way out.
4. Clean power is cheaper: A national auction for round-the-clock (every hour) clean power drew winning bids of ₹5.25 per unit, fixed for 25 years. New coal contracts cost more.

How should India raise the bar?

1. Peak year and cap: India should name the year its power-sector emissions will peak and set an absolute limit, as the Paris Agreement encourages developing countries to do.
2. Generation targets: Targets should count clean electricity generated, not capacity installed. Eg. Chile’s renewables law sought 20% of generation from new renewables by 2025, and hit it six years early.
3. Build the grid: India now struggles to deliver the clean power it can generate:
   • clean output was curbed in most months of 2025 because the grid could not absorb it;
   • only about 80% of planned transmission was built over five years;
   • one day in March, India lost renewable power enough for 5 million urban households.

Challenges

1. Finance gap: NITI Aayog estimates India needs $5.2 trillion by 2050, far beyond the global finance goal.
2. Mineral dependence: India imports nearly all its lithium and cobalt, mostly through China-controlled supply chains.
3. Coal regions: Coal sustains jobs and revenue in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, making an early peak politically costly.

Way Forward

1. Storage-backed tenders: The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy should require storage or round-the-clock supply in new renewable tenders.
2. Just transition plan: The Centre should fund reskilling and new industry in coal States.
3. Finance at COP31: India should press developed countries for grants and cheaper loans.

Conclusion

India’s targets now trail what it has already achieved, so they no longer steer the transition. The test is whether India names a peak year and generation targets at the coming summit.

Key numbers

1. First NDC intensity goal: a 33-35% cut from 2005 levels.
2. Coal contracts signed in 2025: started at ₹5.38 to ₹6.30 per unit.
3. Chile’s raised goal: 70% renewable electricity by 2030.

Government Initiatives for India’s Clean Energy Transition

1. National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC): It guides climate action through mitigation and adaptation technologies.
2. Green Energy Corridors: They build transmission lines that carry large-scale renewable power into the grid.
3. Battery storage support: Viability Gap Funding (VGF), a subsidy covering part of project cost, supports 13.22 GWh of battery storage.
4. Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS): It has replaced the Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT) scheme for several sectors.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2025, GS3, 15 marks] Write a review on India’s climate commitments under the Paris Agreement (2015) and mention how these have been further strengthened in COP26 (2021). In this direction, how has the first Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) intended by India been updated in 2022?”