By Paul Homewood
https://www.climate-transparency.org/online-launch-of-brown-to-green-report-2018
It’s worth taking a closer look at the claim made last week that India is leading the world in tackling climate change.
The claim was based on India’s latest National Electricity Plan (NEP), which was published in April 2018. Below is the current situation for installed capacity, according to the NEP:
From that capacity, generation amounted to 1160 TWh in 2016/17, of which coal currently accounts for 958 TWh, or 82%.
Generation is targeted to nearly double by 2026/27, to 2047 TWh.
To achieve this, capacity will increase to 619 GW, of which 44% will be renewable (which excludes hydro). We must note, however, that coal power capacity is also slated to rise from 192 to 238 GW.
However, as we know, the share of generation will be much different. According to the plan, RES will supply 518 TWh, just 25%. This is not dissimilar to the UK’s current mix.
Coal generation however will jump from its current level of 958 TWh, to 1319 TWh in 2026/27, an increase of 38%.
There has been some talk about India having too much coal capacity in the pipeline, but this is not true.
The NEP has looked closely at the coal power situation. They reckon that of the current capacity of 192 GW, 48 GW will need to be shut down by 2027:
To offset this loss of capacity, and meet the overall generation needed in 2026/27, some 94 GW of new capacity will need to be built. This includes 47 GW already at different stages of construction at the moment.
What this means of course is that a large slice of India’s coal power capacity in 2027 will be new, highly modern, low polluting, high efficiency plants. It is extremely unlikely that India would choose to shut these down soon after, merely on some climate change whim. They are instead likely to still be in use for decades to come.
What does all of this mean for CO2 emissions?
The NEP states that the power sector accounts for about half of India’s emissions. These will increase by 38% from 2015 levels by 2026:
The other half of emissions arises from the industrial and transport sectors. These, of course, are not the subject of the NEP. However, the NEP makes no allowance for any significant shift to electrification of transport, which would need much greater power capacity if it were to occur.
Given India’s need for economic growth, there seems little likelihood of emission cuts in either industry or transport.
Indeed, Climate Action Tracker have carried out their own analysis for overall emissions, and concluded:
Our analysis shows that India can achieve its NDC target with currently implemented policies, i.e. it would not have to put any other policies in place. Under current policy projections, greenhouse gas emissions (excluding LULUCF) are projected to reach a level of 3.2–3.3 GtCO2e in 2020 and 4.5–4.6 GtCO2e in 2030. This is a 53–57% increase in emissions from 2010 levels by 2020 and a more than doubling of 2010 levels by 2030. While this growth is in line with both the 2020 and 2030 intensity pledges, the achievement of India’s targets depends on actual economic growth levels. Population growth is one of the main drivers of India’s projected GHG emissions. By 2028, India is projected to overtake China as the largest country in terms of population. By 2030, India’s population is projected to grow to ~1.5 billion but the per capita emissions would still be far below the world average in 2013 (World Bank, 2017).
https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/india/current-policy-projections/
A doubling of emissions from 2010 levels hardly sounds like “leading to a warming of below 2C”.
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November 17, 2018 at 12:37PM
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