At U.N. climate talks on Monday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the country will aim for net-zero emissions by 2070 — two decades later than many advocates had hoped. He also slightly revised some of his existing targets by pledging that India would install 500 gigawatts of non-fossil energy by 2030 and meet half of its energy demands from renewable sources by that date, up from a previously announced goal of 40 percent.
Modi’s announcement reflected India’s long-stated ambitions to transition to clean energy. But what he left unsaid was an acknowledgment that, as Indians like Chaudhary grow richer and India’s economy expands in energy-intensive sectors, the country’s electricity demand will rise so sharply that it cannot yet afford to abandon cheap coal power, the source of 70 percent of its electricity, for several decades.
How quickly — or how slowly — India, the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, transitions away from fossil fuels will help determine whether the world can meet a core goal of the 2015 Paris agreement to keeping planetary warming “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial levels.