India and climate change

History and Political Context

Great Britain’s colonial occupation of India destroyed and replaced the region’s traditional, cottage-based textile, metal, and craft industries with plantations and infrastructure to export raw materials and mined ores through a few ports to the factories of the British Empire. By the early 1900s, India had a desperately poor subsistence economy that was dependent on the monsoons and experienced frequent famines when crops failed. The world wars necessitated steel plants to be located in India to build railways and armaments to supply the war effort, and a few entrepreneurs such as the Tatas and Birlas won access to the capital needed to create heavy industry.

Upon independence in 1947, India boosted irrigation, agriculture, education, public transport, and heavy industry through a series of central five-year plans. Capital and technology came from the United Kingdom, United States, West Germany, and the Soviet Union. Public-sector plants produced steel, cement, fertilizers, chemicals, aluminum, titanium, railway equipment, heavy electricals and electronics, aircraft, ships, and refined oil. Democratic governments tried to invest scarce resources in education and to improve the desperately poor standard of living of the entire population, with the result that a socialist economy with top-tier tax rates as high as 90 percent and many restrictions on private enterprise evolved and stagnated. Free primary schooling was instituted in many states, and central institutes imparted essentially free, world-class scientific and technical education to students selected on merit.

The investments in education and broad-based opportunity paid off. By 1980, Indian agriculture outpaced population growth and turned the famine nation into a net exporter of food. Even as the rupee plunged in the 1980s as a result of rising energy costs and the inability of government enterprises to compete in the world market, remittances from skilled expatriates in the Middle East oil economies and the West boosted the foreign exchange reserves and the demand for good housing and consumer goods. In 1991, as the nation was facing a debt crisis, the Indian economy was opened to free enterprise and began to advance rapidly.

Globe-trotting Indian software engineers and entrepreneurs led competitive knowledge-based and global service industries and drove explosive growth in information technology, communications, consumer goods, manufacturing, and construction. Investment in space research spawned a thriving remote sensing, educational, communications, and weather satellite system leap-frogging the terrestrial communications grid to the villages. In 2023, India was one of the world's largest growing economies. Their automobile production was fourth in the world, their aviation industry was set to be the third largest in the world by 2024, and their chemical industry continued to expand. India was also the second largest refiner of oil and gas in Asia in 2022, and boasted a steel industry that rivaled the best in the world. While these advancements are critical for the Indian economy, many of these industries are major producers of pollutants.

Impact of Indian Policies on Climate Change

As of 2022, India had proven resources of 111.052 billion barrels of oil and 1.381 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. In 2022, national consumption was 1.164 million barrels of oil per day. In 2021, national consumption of natural gas per year was 58.867 billion cubic meters in 2022. Installed electric capacity in 2022 was 487.407 million kW, consumed at 1.463 kilowatt-hours per year. Total energy consumption per capita in 2022 was 24.793 million Btu. Fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) accounted for 76 percent of installed electrical generation capacity, nuclear 2.6 percent, and hydroelectricity 9.9 percent in 2022. Kerosene, a staple fuel for cooking and lighting of rural and lower-income homes, and diesel fuel for trucks were heavily subsidized at the start of the twenty-first century, but in 2021, the government suspended the subsidy. As of 2022, India reported 99 percent of its people had grid access to electric power.

India has a central ministry for renewable energy (RE). In 2022, the India Brand Equity Foundation reported a 25 percent growth in India’s use of non-fossil fuel energy over seven years, leading them to rank number four in the world in renewable energy. Additionally, investment in renewable energy reached 14.5 billion, the highest ever. These investments originated from a variety of sources, including the National Thermal Power Corporation Renewable Energy Ltd., Norwegian Climate Investment Fund, and Ayana Renewable Power Pvt Ltd. This allowed the airport in Delhi to become entirely reliant on hydro and solar power, and the country’s production of solar power from January to June 2022 reached 47.64 BU. To continue this progress, Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi pledged to increase India’s generation of sustainable energy sources by 50 percent, or 500 GW, by 2030. To encourage the use of solar energy throughout rural areas, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy entered a new phase in its plan to increase residential rooftop solar panels.

Since 1955, India has developed a series of nuclear power plants. In 2023, nuclear power supplied 6.92 gigawatt-hours, or 3.1 percent of the total. In 2008, with approval from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Supplier Group cartel, India signed civilian nuclear cooperation agreements with the United States, France, and Russia to embark on 40 gigawatt-hours of civilian nuclear power by 2030, intended to, form the core of clean baseload generation for advanced industry and critical services. The ultimate aim was a three-stage cycle to use vast Indigenous reserves of thorium, before uranium depleted. In 2023, India’s nuclear plans remained ambitious by focusing on exploiting thorium reserves to expand its twenty-two reactors.

The energy sector accounts for the majority of Indian greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Other projects focused on sequestering carbon dioxide (CO₂) by creating green spaces in urban areas and replanting forests. In 2017, pollution-control laws in major cities such as New Delhi required the conversion of buses and taxis to compressed natural gas fuel. The competition to build a small, cheap automobile excited public interest and opened the market for hybrid and electric cars suited to regenerating power from the frequent braking needed on Indian roads. Also, rainwater collection became mandatory for most new construction, which made a huge impact on urban water supply and helped alleviate the flood-drought cycle and soil erosion. While these initiatives improved the GHG emissions in large Indian cities, further intervention was needed in 2024 as the pollution levels remained at dangerous levels. By this year, India had begun to suffer the effects of global warming and climate change. Heat waves have become more frequent, with temperatures above 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius). According to the New York Times in 2024, by 2050, about 148.2 million people in India will be living in severe climate hot spots. India was the first country in South Asia to create a heat action plan. It created a system to warn residents about dangerous temperatures and educated health care workers to recognize and treat heat-related illnesses. Climate change has also affected the country in other ways. While it often floods in India during monsoons, climate change has made these rains erratic. Instead of experiencing a steady predictable rain, the country receives an enormous amount of rain in a short time. This causes severe flooding and landslides that kill hundreds of people each year. This strong rain followed by long periods of dryness.

India as a GHG Emitter

Home to more than 1.4 billion people in 2024, India accounted for 4,140 million metric tons of the world’s GHG emissions placing it in third place, behind China at 16,000 million metric tons and the United States at 5,970 million metric tons. The Indian carbon footprint from carbon dioxide emissions reached a peak in 2021 at 36.3 billion tons, but total GHG emissions shrunk by 9% from 2019 to 2020. However, these levels rose again in 2021 to the highest levels ever, including coal and renewable power.

Southern and central India are in the tropical climate zone, and even in the northern plains, winter home heating is rarely needed. Residential air conditioning is generally impractical because of power shortages in summer. Houses built to resist summer heat, and monsoon rains have efficient throughflow ventilation. Windows are kept open.

Most Indians live in small villages. The cities are densely populated, with few zoning restrictions. Many people can walk or ride bicycles or scooters to work. Commuters use public transportation heavily. Long-distance travel is mostly by rail or bus. The Indian staple diet is organically grown, mostly in small farms, and consists of grain, vegetables, fish, and meat products marketed and consumed locally, minimizing energy use in processing, packaging, and transportation. Few homes have large appliances. Much Indian clothing is made from cotton, suited for the hot, humid climate, rather than from synthetic petroleum products. For these reasons, the personal and discretionary parts of the Indian carbon footprint are minimal.

The primary power resource in India is coal, powering 55 percent of Indian industry with thermal plants. With heavy industry near cities, GHG emissions and urban air pollution are severe. Much of the population uses open, wood-burning stoves or other burners for cooking. Composting and outdoor burning generate GHGs, fumes, and particulates. Fleets of two- and three-wheelers powered by two-stroke engines and ancient diesel trucks that survive vehicle emission laws generate noxious fumes in gridlocked traffic on narrow, monsoon-damaged roads.

In the early twenty-first century, moderate economic growth and a population increase to 1.3 billion was predicted to double GHG emissions, reaching 2.4 metric tons, by 2030. However, using sustainable technologies and clean coal burning could reduce the growth rate of emissions by roughly 50 percent, leveling it off at a much lower footprint. In 2023, the population of India exceeded 1.4 billion, and its GHG emissions remained in the top three in the world.

Summary and Foresight

India has signed and ratified most of the United Nations treaties related to climate change, including the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, but understanding Indian progress requires a deeper perspective. This vast, densely populated nation has a common culture but a diverse population. The vibrant democracy holds regular, free elections and frequent, vociferous, and even violent protests. In every city, dozens of newspapers in English and Indian languages present diverse viewpoints, and hundreds if not thousands of political parties span the entire spectrum. The Internet has caught on rapidly. The transistor radio and newspaper are now supplemented by satellite television even in the villages, and Indians are connected to a worldwide diaspora through bicycle-delivered mail, but also cell phones, text messaging, and voice-over-Internet.

In the 1980s, the Panchayati Raj law devolved many powers from the central government to elected village Panchayats (originally meaning an assembly of five or more wise people). Grassroots movements draw power partially from an ancient native respect for nature, partially from a fear of foreign enslavement, and partially from the class war ambitions of the communist parties. Skepticism about big corporations has evolved into critical examination of large-scale development and its effects on the environment. Intense and sophisticated opposition ostensibly based on concern for people displaced from fertile areas by dam reservoirs or large industrial plants has raised public awareness and interest in climate change and sustainable development issues all over India. This situation creates unique opportunities for game-changing developments.

Middle-class initiatives may revolutionize renewable power and sustainable development far beyond government targets, adapting advanced technology to Indian needs and preferences. Millions of Indian homes and businesses, forced by the abysmally unreliable power grid, already have grid-connected inverters, battery storage, voltage regulators, and auxiliary generators, and they are ready to incorporate renewable sources and perhaps a hydrogen economy. Highly efficient light emitting diodes are becoming popular for home lighting. Cell phones have rendered the landline telephone network obsolete, and beamed power may do the same to the power grid. Cleaner-burning liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) delivered in cylinders has become popular in Indian urban homes, but rising fossil fuel prices may replace these with biomass natural gas. Family-level solar thermal and biomass system installations are reaching critical mass numbers for explosive growth. With these, India has the potential rapidly to become a leader in sustainable development.

Key Facts

• Population: 1,409,128,296 (2024)
• Area: 3,287,263 square kilometers
• Gross domestic product (GDP): $13.104 trillion (purchasing power parity, 2022 estimate)
• Carbon dioxide emissions in millions of metric tons 2. 85 billion metric tonnes of CO2 (2033)
• Paris Agreement status: August 2022, pledged to cut emissions to levels equal to those of 2005 by the year 2030.

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