As the world grapples with the prolonged impacts of the West Asia crisis, India has stayed the course on climate action with its NDC 3.0, committing to a 60 per cent share of clean energy sources by 2035. Experts note that while the commitments send a strong signal, the approach remains measured with room to do more. India’s emission intensity has already reduced by 36 per cent from 2005 to 2020, and in its new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), it has committed to reducing it by 47 per cent from 2005 base levels. In terms of the clean energy push, the country has already achieved 52.57 per cent non-fossil capacity in February, meeting its 2030 target five years ahead of the timeline. Now, the ambition has been further raised to achieving a 60 per cent share of non-fossil fuel-based energy in installed electric power capacity by 2035.

“While India has raised its ambition to decarbonise the power sector, it is also doubling down on energy security and affordability for hundreds of millions of its citizens. If that trajectory is maintained and supply chain disruptions ease, India will exceed its target, as it has repeatedly done in the past,” remarked Dr. Arunabha Ghosh, CEO, Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW).

While experts concur that India’s targets send an important signal for climate action at a time when conflict and energy security concerns are pulling countries away from climate commitments, they also highlight that NDC 3.0 perhaps underestimates the country’s potential for transformative clean energy growth. But they also add that the government could be taking a measured approach, deliberately conservative in its global pledges but aiming for higher ambition domestically.

“India’s booming clean energy industry is highly likely to deliver much faster progress than policymakers were prepared to commit to today. Under current plans, the target of 60 per cent clean power capacity will be achieved before 2030, rather than by 2035,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, Lead Analyst and Co-Founder, Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

Vibhuti Garg, Director South Asia, Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), also maintained that India’s revised NDCs are a step in the right direction, but highlighted that they fall short of the ambition required at this stage of the energy transition. “With non-fossil fuel capacity already crossing ~52 per cent by 2025-26, a target of 60 per cent by 2035 does not adequately reflect either the pace of progress or the scale of opportunity ahead,” she said. Additionally, even though India is adding massive clean energy, coal will remain the dominant source of energy till 2035 to meet the energy needs of its population.

In its National Generation Adequacy Plan just announced for the period 2026-27 to 2035-36, the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) projected that India is on course for 1,121 GW of installed power capacity by 2035-36, with 70 per cent (786 GW) coming from non-fossil fuel sources. Solar alone is projected to cross 45 per cent (500 GW) of India’s energy pie, making it the single-largest contributor to India’s electricity mix, ahead of coal for the first time.

MEASURED APPROACH, SAY EXPERTS
According to Labanya Jena, Director, Climate and Sustainability Initiative, the government is likely being cautious about these commitments, considering India’s current technical and financial capacities and its reliance on imported technologies. “The carbon emissions goal is now 47 per cent. This is not very optimistic, at least from the mitigation perspective. Also, given that the US has backed out and the EU has also gone on the back foot on climate, the global effort has already been waning. So, India also seems to have committed in a cautious manner,” he said. Weighing in on the announcements, Aarti Khosla, Director, Climate Trends, agreed that India’s approach stands for its balance at a time when attention is increasingly shifting towards energy security and climate finance flows are under strain.

The long-awaited announcements also come at a crucial time as India is the BRICS chair, and this may pave the way for a BRICS-led climate action, say experts. “It is evident that the West is not going to lead on climate, and India is showing that the leadership now needs to come from large developing countries. So, this announcement is a clear sign of that leadership,” said Dhruba Purkayastha, Consultant, Standing Committee on Finance, UNFCCC.

In its eight-point NDCs, India has also enhanced the ambition of creating a carbon sink through forest and tree cover to 3.5-4.0 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2035 from the 2005 level, and announced five qualitative targets to promote sustainability in everyday life and governance systems, as well as climate-resilient development pathways.

Originally published in News18 (Online).