Why India doesn't have to choose between economic growth and climate action
来源:World Economic Forum;发表于:2022-05-11;人气指数:258
Why India
doesn't have to choose
between economic growth and climate action
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/03/india-economy-stronger-climate-action/
A new World Resources
Institute paper finds that India does not have to choose between its economy
and climate action.
Image: Unsplash/
Hardik Joshi
11 Mar 2022
Varun Agarwal
Writer, World
Resource Institute
Deepthi Swamy
Writer, World
Resource Institute
*Over the next three
decades, India's GDP is expected to triple and the population is expected to
increase by another 200 million people.
*As a result, the
country is poised for significant expansion in its infrastructure, energy
consumption and resource-use.
*Developing effective
strategies and policies to enable a sustainable, but economically viable
expansion is vital.
*Addressing issues of
electricity, industry and transport are all top priorities.
India is an emerging
economy at the cusp of sizeable growth: over the next three decades, its gross
domestic product (GDP) is expected to triple and the population is
expected to increase by another 200 million people. As a result, the country is
poised for significant expansion in its infrastructure, energy consumption and
resource-use as it seeks to improve the standard of living of its population.
Under business-as-usual
practices, this expansion will lead to much higher emissions. For example,
under current practices, more than half of India’s projected carbon
dioxide emissions in 2040 will come from buildings, appliances, factories
and vehicles that do not yet exist. This points to not only the urgency of
national climate action, but the scale of the opportunity to create a
low-carbon development pathway for the country.
Given these converging
needs, India faces a critical question: will stronger climate action entail a
trade-off with economic growth that would put its development goals at risk, or
can the nation lay the foundation for a more robust economy and improved human
well-being through ambitious climate goals?
A new WRI paper finds
that India does not have to choose between its economy and climate action. In
fact, eight critical policies would allow India to decarbonize its economy,
achieve economic growth and create new jobs.
How India can benefit
by 2050 from ambitious climate action.
Image: World
Resources Institute
The Many Benefits of
Decarbonization in India
The policies outlined
in this research would have several benefits. First, these policies could
enable India to cut its projected greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to around
one-third by 2050. Without these policies, the nation’s emissions will likely
continue to grow and potentially reach over 7 billion metric tons of carbon
dioxide equivalent (CO2e) by 2050.
Decarbonization will
not only cut GHG emissions, but also create net-cost savings across the
economy, create new jobs, grow the nation’s economy and yield positive public
health outcomes.
While there are many
costs associated with building and maintaining clean energy technologies, the
gradual shift away from fossil fuels would lead to savings in the long run. In
fact, the savings from avoided fossil fuel costs would begin to outweigh the
cost of clean technologies within this decade. This could lead to net savings of
₹66 trillion ($965 billion) by 2050.
The shift away from
fossil fuels could affect India’s GDP and employment due to a contraction in
sectors such as coal mining, petroleum refining and manufacturing for internal
combustion engine vehicles. Moreover, the economic contraction could be aggravated
by the loss in government revenue from taxes on petroleum products, which would
constrain government spending.
However, our analysis
shows that phasing in an economy-wide carbon tax can offset the decline in
government revenue from petroleum taxes. The jobs created in the economy when
the government spends its carbon tax revenues, together with new jobs in
industries like clean electricity generation and hydrogen production, more than
compensates for jobs lost in high-emitting sectors. Overall, the package of
decarbonization policies would generate up to 40 million net additional jobs
and deliver a GDP that is up to 1.5% higher compared to business-as-usual by
2050.
Finally, the analysis
shows that these policies could help avoid up to 9.4 million premature deaths
by 2050. The reduction of fossil fuel use in the transport, industry and power
sectors would dramatically cut harmful air pollutants such as sulphur oxides
(SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter, improving overall human
health.
Key Policies for
Decarbonization
So what does India
need to do to make these benefits into reality? Here are eight key policies,
targeting different economic sectors, that need to be implemented to put India
on its low-carbon development pathway:
1. Electricity: Introduce a carbon-free electricity standard to ensure
at least 75% of electricity is generated from fossil-free sources by 2050, as
compared to approximately 20% presently.
2. Electricity: Phase out the existing coal-based capacity, which is
currently around 200 gigawatts, by the 2040s by retiring inefficient thermal
power plants.Industry: Improve the efficiency of energy use by at
least 25% by strengthening and expanding the coverage of existing programs like
the Perform, Achieve Trade (PAT) energy trading scheme.
3. Industry: Introduce material efficiency, longevity and re-use
standards that reduce the projected use of emissions-intensive materials, such
as cement and steel, in the economy by at least 15% by 2050. Considering that
most of India's urban infrastructure is yet to be built, this provides a
significant opportunity to slow the growth of emissions from hard-to-abate
sectors.
4. Industry: Substitute approximately half of the fossil fuel
used to generate energy for industrial processes with electricity and green
hydrogen by 2050.
5. Transport: Introduce fuel economy standards and provide
support for mode shifting — such as from private to public passenger transport
and from road to rail freight transport — to reduce fuel use.
6. Transport: Set phased electric vehicle (EV) sales mandates
that ensure all two- and three- wheelers, half of all cars and half of all
buses sold in the market are electric by 2050. Additionally, around half of the
trucks sold should be powered by electricity or hydrogen.
7. Economy-wide: Enforce a carbon tax, which is increased in a
phased manner over time to reach approximately $75 per tonne of CO2e emissions
in 2050.Getting India on Track for a Low-Carbon Future
A just, low-carbon
transition in India needs to be built on three supporting pillars. The first
pillar is to ensure adequate infrastructure — such as battery storage, EV
charging stations, and hydrogen supply and distribution networks — to enable an
economy-wide shift from fossil fuel use to clean fuels and electricity. The
second is to re-design government revenue generation mechanisms to offset the
losses from current energy taxes on fossil fuels. The final pillar is to design
an implementation roadmap that ensures an equitable distribution of economic
gains from the transition across all sections of society.
The case is clear:
taking strong action today to decarbonize India’s economy will create a
stronger, healthier and more prosperous society. The question is no longer
whether to pursue these policies, but how to design them in a way that supports
both socioeconomic and climate goals.