India’s Progress on Climate Targets: Achievements and Structural Gaps

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• India’s progress on its climate targets is under scrutiny as recent assessments highlight a gap between emission intensity reduction and absolute emission control. 

India’s Climate Commitments under the Paris Agreement

• At the 2015 Paris Climate Summit, India articulated its climate strategy based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. 
• Recognising its low historical per capita emissions, India committed to four major climate targets:
  • Reducing emissions intensity of GDP by 33-35% from 2005 levels by 2030
  • Achieving 40% non-fossil fuel power capacity by 2030 (later enhanced to 50%)
  • Installing 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022
  • Creating an additional carbon sink of 2.5-3 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent through forests
• These commitments aimed to balance developmental needs with climate responsibility in a growing economy.

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Progress in Emission Intensity Reduction

• India has made notable progress in reducing emissions intensity, emissions per unit of GDP. 
• By 2020, emissions intensity had declined by around 36% compared to 2005 levels, allowing India to meet its original Paris target nearly a decade ahead of schedule.
• This improvement has been driven by three structural factors. 
  • First, the rapid expansion of non-fossil electricity sources such as solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear significantly reduced the carbon intensity of power generation. 
  • Second, India’s economic structure has gradually shifted towards services and digital sectors, which are less emission-intensive than manufacturing. 
  • Third, national efficiency initiatives like the Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT) scheme and the UJALA LED programme have reduced electricity demand growth in industries and households.
• However, these gains largely reflect relative decoupling, where emissions grow more slowly than GDP rather than declining in absolute terms.

Persistently High Absolute Emissions

• Despite improvements in emissions intensity, India’s absolute greenhouse gas emissions remain high. 
• Territorial emissions stood at approximately 2,959 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent in 2020 and have continued to rise thereafter.
• This highlights a key limitation of intensity-based metrics. While GDP growth has outpaced emission growth, total emissions have not declined. 
• Sector-wise analysis reveals that emissions from cement, steel, and transport continue to increase, even as the growth rate of emissions from the power sector has moderated. 
• As India is now the world’s third-largest emitter in absolute terms, the challenge lies in converting intensity gains into real emission reductions.

Renewable Energy Expansion and Generation Gap

• India’s renewable energy capacity expansion has been impressive. Non-fossil fuel capacity increased from about 30% in 2015 to over 50% by mid-2025. 
• Solar power has led this growth, rising from less than 3 GW in 2014 to over 110 GW by 2025, supported by falling tariffs and domestic manufacturing. 
• Wind power growth, however, has been slower due to land availability, grid connectivity issues, and state-level regulatory hurdles.
• A major concern is the gap between installed capacity and actual electricity generation. 
  • Although non-fossil sources account for over half of installed capacity, they contribute only around 22% of total electricity generation. 
• Coal continues to dominate power generation because of its ability to provide stable baseload electricity. 
• Storage limitations remain a critical bottleneck, with battery energy storage capacity far below projected requirements for the next decade.

Forest Carbon Sink and Governance Challenges

• India is close to achieving its forest-based carbon sink target on paper. 
• Official estimates suggest that only about 0.2 billion tonnes of additional sequestration is required to meet the 2030 goal. However, definitional and governance issues complicate this assessment.
• The Forest Survey of India’s broad definition of forest cover includes plantations, monocultures, and tree cover outside natural forests. 
• While this inflates carbon stock figures, it does not necessarily reflect ecological health or biodiversity restoration. 
• Additionally, large funds under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act remain underutilised in several States, weakening implementation outcomes. 
• Climate stress, including heat and water scarcity, further threatens forest productivity, especially in ecologically sensitive regions.

Source: TH