India’s use of coal may have peaked in 2018, according to a new report by according to U.K.-based clean energy group Ember. That’s sooner than many experts have forecast.
The share of the dirtiest fossil fuel in India’s power mix fell for the second year in a row in 2020, according to the report released on Tuesday, due to an economic slowdown in 2019 followed by a pandemic-induced recession. There’s a chance coal power never has to breach 2018 levels again if the Indian government meets its renewable energy goals, Ember senior analyst Aditya Lolla wrote.
Rapidly cutting global coal consumption is necessary to meet climate goals set under the Paris Agreement, which strives to keep temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
That’s especially true for China and India, the largest and third-largest emitters of greenhouse gases respectively. While advanced economies like the U.S. and U.K. have had more time to develop alternatives, countries like India and China have to make the switch more quickly. Solar power is now the cheapest source of electricity in most parts of India, offering an opportunity for the government to accelerate adoption.
India could speed up the transition by placing a moratorium on new coal power plants and incentivizing the closure of old, inefficient facilities, Lolla wrote in the report. That would require the government to shift its current policies, which saw the government auctioning new coal mines as recently as November.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
