India will meet climate goals ahead of schedule, says outgoing energy minister

Share

The ambitious carbon reduction and clean energy adoption goals of India could be hit ahead of schedule, the country’s outgoing climate minister has said this week.

Speaking at a conference in Delhi, Prakash Javadekar said that it is feasible that India can cut the carbon intensity of its GDP by 35% on 2005 levels sooner than the targeted 2030 date. India is also on course to hit 40% renewables share in its energy mix before 2030 as well, Javadekar said, thanks to strong growth in the country’s solar sector in particular.

"I’m sure all sectors will also contribute to adopt the sustainable development track and achieve the INDCs [agreed in Paris at COP21 last December] even much earlier than what we have promised, and that’s the way forward," he said.

Piyush Goyal, India’s energy minister, has made similarly bold claims recently regarding solar, predicting that the country’s 100 GW of solar by 2022 goal will be easily met given the continued price declines in solar panels.

In Paris last year, Javadekar was eager for India to play a leading role in shaping the can-do tone of the COP21 talks. Taking his cue from Prime Minister Narendra Modi – who used the Paris platform to launch the Global Solar Alliance – Javadekar said that “without India it would not have been possible to arrive at a consensus in Paris. We will not say oppose, we will say propose, and with that one change the whole attitude of the negotiations changed."

The climate minister did add, however, that coal will have to remain a mainstay of India’s energy mix for a while yet, but added that the government’s recent increase in coal tax was a necessary and encouraging step in the right direction.

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

Popular content

Solid-state batteries enter pilot production, costs expected to drastically drop

01 November 2024 The latest findings from Taipei-based intelligence provider TrendForce show that all-solid-state battery production volumes could have GWh levels by 2...

Share

Leave a Reply

Please be mindful of our community standards.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.

Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.

You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.

Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.