Relevance: GS-2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Relevance: GS-3: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.

Key Phrases: Decarbonisation, Renewable and Green Energy, CO2 emissions, Carbon Neutrality, Fossil Fuels, Net-Zero, Panchamrita’ promises, Carbon-Intensive Revenue, Low-Carbon Technologies.

Why in News?

• The decarbonisation move includes curtailing diesel intake, encouraging green grids, low-power digital designs, better efficiencies, better water treatment facilities, and so on.

Context:

• The need for renewable and green energy mission is now critical. Since 1970, CO2 emissions have increased by about 90 per cent, with emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes contributing about 78 per cent of the total greenhouse gas emissions increase from 1970 to 2011.
• According to the Energy Information Administration  (EIA) projections, there is going to be a nearly 50 per cent increase in global energy use by 2050.
• As economic activity picked up after lifting of Covid-19-induced lockdowns, there have been reports suggesting rise in energy costs and tight supplies from all parts of the globe.
• Global summits talk about commitments from all nations on net-zero emissions and carbon neutrality. And yet, fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas supply 80 per cent of the world’s energy used. Large parts of the developing world rely on that. That is why global energy debates have the potential to threaten social cohesion.
• At the Paris summit on climate change in 2015, world leaders agreed to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees celsius, preferably to 1.5 degrees celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.
• To cap global warming at 1.5 degrees celsius, policy should take the long view, expand access to digital connectivity and invest in green infrastructure.
• The energy challenge is three-fold.
  • First, we need reliable and clean energy to meet our consumption requirements.
  • Second, we need transition to green energy sources to decrease the burden of global warming.
  • Third, we need to increase the reliability and resilience of the grid network.

India’s Efforts Towards Decarbonisation:

• India set up the Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources in 1992 and renamed it Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) in 2006, laying the foundation for renewable energy growth.
• The Union Government has resolved to see India emerge as a leader in the renewable energy space. It has set an ambitious target of achieving 450GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030.
• In the past 10 years, renewables have seen rapid growth in our energy ecosystem. Estimates suggest India has over 1050 GW of renewable potential in wind and solar power energy.
• Green energy sources like solar and wind offer intermittent benefits, given their reliance on sunlight and high-speed winds. This makes energy storage vital to building green capacities.
• Europe generates 30 per cent of its power by renewables, out of which 13 per cent is by wind. In India, hydro contributes to 11 per cent of the total energy produced, followed by wind and solar.
• In the past eight years, ₹5.2 lakh crore have been invested in renewable energy. Policy interventions like transparent bidding, waiving of inter-state transmission system charges, etc. have helped India play a leading role in the clean energy ecosystem.
• In fact, India helped set up the International Solar Alliance in 2015, to promote solar energy in 121 tropical countries.
• Additionally, waste-to-energy projects offer twin benefits of making India clean and green. We need to have more such projects. We should also encourage green mobility and production of hydrogen.
• Technology can help bring down the price of renewable energy and become a game-changer in the climate change battle. Digitalised energy systems with advanced situational intelligence can identify who needs energy and when and deliver it at the lowest cost.
• Despite the pandemic, steady growth helped us cross the 100GW target of installed capacity of renewable energy in 2021.
• The decarbonisation move includes curtailing diesel intake, encouraging green grids, low-power digital designs, better efficiencies, better water treatment facilities, and so on.

How to Decarbonise Various Sectors of Economy?

• To decarbonise the electricity sector:
  • Pursue the well-managed retirement of coal power plants and make significant investments in transmission and distribution infrastructure, demand response, and a doubling of storage capacity from BAU projections (450 GW by 2050). These efforts will prepare India’s electricity grid to become more flexible and ready for a renewable energy-powered future.
  • Implement a carbon-free electricity standard to achieve 90 percent of electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by mid-century. This target is a 20 percentage points increase from the current trajectory of 70 percent renewables under business-as-usual.
  • Subsidise costlier emerging technologies such as off-shore wind in the near-term, and then reduce the subsidies as the technology becomes cost-competitive.
• To decarbonise the transport sector:
  • Incentivise the build-out of electric vehicle charging infrastructure alongside implementing EV sales mandates.
  • Implement an EV sales mandate that increases over time along with a gradual decrease in purchase incentives to ensure that the passenger segment (cars and two-wheelers) can become mostly electric by mid-century.
  • Establish stricter fuel economy standards for heavy-duty vehicles in the near term, along with a longer-term policy to convert the fossil-fuel dependent heavy duty vehicle segment to electrification and hydrogen.
  • Mode shift at least one-third of passenger vehicle demand to electrified public transport options.
• To decarbonise the industry sector:
  • Expand the Perform, Achieve, and Trade (PAT) scheme from a pilot programme and reduce the energy use across cement, iron, and steel, and chemicals industries by 25 percent.
  • Implement a progressive carbon tax that incentivises industries to further reduce their dependence on fossil fuels through material efficiency improvements and conversion to electrification and green hydrogen use.

Way Forward:

• To boost decarbonisation, existing policies would need to be augmented and supported by three key additional policy types.
• First, to bring out policies that set clear immediate signals to phase-out polluting and inefficient technologies (e.g., coal thermal power, gasoline vehicles) during the next three decades.
• Second, to bring out policies that raise new types of low-carbon government revenue to compensate for the reduction in carbon-intensive revenue by 2050 and sustain an ambitious development and social investment programme.
• Finally, to bring out policies that crowd investment over the next decade into the low-carbon technologies and enable the transition to a prosperous innovation economy. These shifts in focus, which build on India’s already existing ambitions, will serve the climate and India’s own economic goals.

Source: The Hindu BL

Mains Question:

Q. Discuss India’s programme of decarbonisation and way forward to achieve the goals for decarbonisation.