Economic Survey 2025: Energy security, affordability to guide India's climate change strategy

The Economic Survey 2024-25 further stated that the use of nuclear power in India's energy mix should be increased, even as it is mired by challenges ranging from safety to latest technologies resting with a few countries.

Condemning the developed nations for a "lack of commitment" towards mitigating climate change, the Economic Survey for 2024-25 said energy security and affordability shall guide India's energy transition journey.

The Survey report tabled in the Parliament on January 31 said coal cannot be neglected as a reliable and affordable source of energy for the country's development. It emphasised that coal, a polluting fossil fuel, can also be used in a sustainable way for power generation. "One key strategy has been to promote the efficient use of coal by utilising super-critical (SC), ultra-super-critical (USC) and the recent advanced ultra super critical (AUSC) technologies in coal-based power plants... The AUSC power plants will reduce emissions by about 11 percent compared to super-critical plants," it said.

Also Read: Economic Survey 2025: Rural areas get 21.9 hours of power supply daily on an average

The Economic Survey 2024-25 also said the use of nuclear power in India's energy mix should be increased, even as it is mired by challenges ranging from safety to the latest technologies resting with a few countries. "Geographical concentration of uranium and other essential minerals also poses a challenge. Besides, nuclear energy relies heavily on the stability of fossil fuel supply chains to produce sulfuric acid for uranium extraction. By 2040, estimates suggest that a shortfall of sulfuric acid supply could range from 100 million to 320 million tonnes, depending on the extent of efforts to reduce carbon emissions," it said.

Chief economic adviser V Anantha Nageswaran said several challenges hinder renewable energy's cost-effective and efficient integration into the energy mix. These include significant investments required for grid integration, the development of battery infrastructure to manage intermittency, scaling up production of the components of renewable energy systems, access to critical minerals that are needed for storage technology, the limited availability of land in densely populated areas and the competing and rapidly increasing energy demands from agriculture, infrastructure, and industry.

The report further said the friction between energy transition and energy security is clearly evident in the actions of developed countries, revealing the limitations of transitioning to
renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

Also Read: Economic Survey 2025 flags dependencies on China and offers solutions to counter it.

India has stated that the developed nations establishing a small mobilisation target of $ 300 billion annually by 2035 is a fraction of the estimated requirement of $ 5.1 - 6.8 trillion by 2030.5. The decision, the Economic Survey said, "underscores the unwillingness of affluent developed nations to assume their equitable share of the responsibility to address emission reduction and mitigate climate change impacts on vulnerable populations in developing regions."

The goal contravenes equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibility in the global climate response by disproportionately placing the burdens of climate change on those nations that have not historically contributed to the crisis, the survey report added.