NEW DELHI: India’s 4th Biennial Update Report (BUR-4) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) suggests the country is on the road to decoupling its economy from carbon-intensive fossil fuels to a renewable energy-driven economy. However, experts attributed the improvement in data to the Covid lockdown instead of any additional genuine effort.
The report shows that in 2020, India’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions decreased by 7.93% as compared to 2019. Long term analysis also shows that the country has continued decoupling economic growth from GHG emissions.
Between 2005 and 2020, the emission intensity of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reduced by 36%.
Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bhupendra Yadav attributed the good performance to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies, adding India is leading by example in sustainable growth.
Climate scientist Prof T Jayaraman appreciated the progress towards net zero target, adding India has fulfilled more than its pre-2020 pledge of reducing its emissions intensity of GDP by 20-25% below 2005 levels. However, he underlined the achievement is due to economic consequences of the Covid pandemic and its management.
“The emissions reduction of 2020 with respect to 2019 must be seen in the context of the economic consequences of Covid and its management strategies and should not be interpreted as a sign of decarbonisation,” said Jayraman.
In the energy sector, by October 2024, the share of non-fossil sources in the installed electricity generation capacity was 46.52%, which is near the target of 50%. The cumulative renewable power installed capacity has increased 4.5 times from 35 GW in March 2014 to 156.25 GW.
“The report shows a promising increase in renewable energy capacity. However, it doesn’t mention much about storage and transmission related critical information,” said another expert who did not want to be named. Also, the report shows coal is still dominating the energy sector. Besides, the renewable energy capacity continues to be underutilised.
The report also indicates that India has managed its forest and open grassland wisely, which helped in reducing carbon emission of approximately 522 million tonnes of CO2e. It works out to around 22% of the country’s total carbon dioxide emissions in 2020. Between 2005 and 2021, an additional carbon sink of 2.29 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent has been created.
In 2020, India’s total GHG emissions, excluding land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF), were 2,959 million tonnes of CO2e and 2,437 million tonnes of CO2e with the inclusion of LULUCF.
According to the report, the energy sector contributed the most to overall emissions (75.66%), followed by agriculture (13.72%), industrial processes and product use (8.06%), and waste (2.56%). (see Table 1)
In terms of GHGs, carbon dioxide emission constitutes the largest quantity followed by methane and nitrous oxide. (see Table 2)
Environment expert Debi Goenka of the Conservation Action Trust took a critical look at the data India submitted to the UN body, citing increasing coal mining, deforestation and rising sea temperature. “India’s coal consumption has been increasing, natural dense forest is reducing, forest fires are increasing and ocean temperature is rising, which reduces its CO2 sinking capacity,” Goenka said. He further questioned the renewable energy data. “If the quantum of renewable energy has been scaled up so much, then why reliance on coal mining is also going up,” he wondered.