India's climate ambitions are slipping

India could be the 21st century climate leader that Modi speaks of. But its carbon footprint has now overtaken the European Union’s to be the biggest in the world after China and the US.

India announced its arrival this year as the world’s biggest country by population with a promise to do things differently from the nations that preceded it in global leadership.

In taking this year's presidency of the Group of 20, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose as his theme a term from Sanskrit scripture, “vasudhaiva kutumbakam,” emphasising sustainability and global unity. He named climate change, alongside terrorism and pandemics, as one of the greatest challenges the world faces. With the G-20 leaders’ summit due to begin in New Delhi Saturday, it’s notable how quiet that green rhetoric has gotten.

In comments to the Press Trust of India news agency this week, Modi preferred to talk about a (failed) plastic bag ban and a quixotic campaign of global lifestyle changes — finishing up the food on your plate, not leaving the tap running, and eating more millet. There was no mention of the country’s ambitious target to install 500 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030.

“There are no one-size-fits-all solutions” and “our pathways for energy transition will be different,” he said, echoing diplomatic language that’s been used to push back against targets to phase out fossil fuels.

That choice of emphasis is less surprising when you consider how India is making it through the torrid monsoon season. Hot, dry weather has caused the 7 percent -9 percent of households who have air conditioning to crank it up, while farmers have switched on groundwater irrigation pumps, pushing demand from the grid to a record 240 gigawatts Sept. 1.

With the rainfall shortage causing hydroelectric dams to run short and renewables installations well below government targets, that’s pushed coal consumption to record levels. Output rose 13 percent from a year earlier in August to nearly 68 million metric tons, the Ministry of Coal boasted last week. Power cuts, rightly, are out of the question, especially with the country less than nine months away from general elections.

India is the last place that should be taking blame for the climate situation the world is in. Responsible for just 3 percent of historic greenhouse pollution, even in its current fast-growing, coal-burning state it accounts for less than a third of the European Union’s emissions on a per-capita basis, and about one-eighth of those in the US. All that air conditioning, as we’ve written, is as much a survival necessity as a luxury on a planet that is rapidly warming.

And yet Modi’s government does need to take responsibility for the targets it set for itself. Back in 2015, he announced an ambitious plan to lift installations of wind, solar and small-scale renewables to 175 gigawatts by 2022. Ultimately, only about 60 percent of the promised capacity was added, though ministers claimed a partial victory by lumping in nuclear, large hydro, and under-construction generators to get closer to the total.

Now the government wants 500 gigawatts of zero-carbon power to be installed by 2030, which would need about 50 gigawatts added every year. That is looking even less achievable. Cumulative installations in the three-and-a-half years since the end of 2019 have only amounted to about 40 gigawatts. The capacity installed in January through May was just 4.8 gigawatts, putting the country on track for the weakest year since 2020.

There are some intractable factors behind that shortfall, such as global interest rates that have pushed up the cost of financing energy infrastructure, and a chaotic land ownership system that’s fueled opposition to solar and transmission projects. Others, however, are the result of bad policy, such as a planned 40 percent import tax on solar modules that will do more to increase the costs of renewable power than foster a domestic manufacturing industry.

Uncertainties around power tariffs, approved components, and project timelines contributed to a 58 percent year-on-year fall in solar installations during the June quarter, according to consultancy Mercom India Research. Where favorable policy is in place, there is still a healthy market; during the same period, wind connections jumped by 165 percent thanks in part to rules requiring utilities to buy more power from such turbines, Mercom wrote.

The contrast to other countries is striking. In most of the world, 2023 has been a bumper year for the energy transition. China alone will install 209 gigawatts of solar this year, according to BloombergNEF, with plug-in cars hitting a 38 percent market share in July. In India, the equivalent share so far this year was just 5.5 percent. There are still just 8,738 public charging stations for electric vehicles, compared to the 1.32 million that the Confederation of Indian Industry believes will be necessary by 2030.

With some of the lowest costs for renewables on the planet, India could be the 21st century climate leader that Modi speaks of. But its carbon footprint has now overtaken the European Union’s to be the biggest in the world after China and the US, and is likely to rise faster than anywhere else over the next decade. Words are all very well. If Modi wants India to live up to its stunning potential, he’s going to need to ensure they’re matched with actions.

David Fickling is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering commodities, as well as industrial and consumer companies. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.