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Thursday, January 5th, 2017

India on track to beat its Paris targets years ahead of schedule, according to government report

Author:     Natasha Geiling
Source:     Think Progress
Publication Date:     Dec 23, 2016
 Link: India on track to beat its Paris targets years ahead of schedule, according to government report
Stephan:   Here is some good news, and further evidence that while U.S. government policies seem to be oriented towards preserving carbon energy as long as possible, many other nations have taken a different path. It is all part of what I see as an alarming mosaic of trends. With the exception of our military which in fiscal year 2015 accounted for 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending, for a total of $598.5 billion, in terms of healthcare, education, elder care, democracy, child care, life expectancy, upward mobility, and most other social outcomes we increasingly look like a second tier country. Happily even though we can't seem to muster the political will to deal with what is coming, we will nonetheless benefit from the policies of India and other countries, because their move out of carbon energy  benefits the planet and demonstrates once again the Theorem of Wellbeing.

An Indian security man walks amid a rooftop solar plant at the secretariat gymkhana in Gandhinagar, India.
Credit: AP/Ajit Solanki

In ten years, India could get almost sixty percent of its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources, according to a government forecast published this week. (emphasis added)

According to a draft of the country’s 10-year energy blueprint, the Indian government expects that 57 percent of the country total electricity capacity will come from non-fossil fuel sources by 2027 — a marked increase over the country’s Paris goals, which say that the country will reach 40 percent non-fossil fuel electricity by 2030. The draft also noted that no new coal-fired power plants would be needed to meet India’s electricity demands through 2027.

“India is moving beyond fossil fuels at a pace scarcely imagined only two years ago,” Tim Buckley, a director at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, told the Guardian. He also characterized the forecast as “absolutely transformational.”

India is the world’s fourth-largest greenhouse gas emitter, […]

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