Open Forum

New Delhi, 19 February 2025

Reducing Emission Intensity

THRUST ON NUCLEAR POWER VITAL?

By Dhurjati Mukherjee 

The year 2024 was the warmest year in the history of the Earth, the first to exceed 1.5⁰ C pre-industrial levels with 44% of the globe affected by heat stress. The environmental challenge thus poses major problems for countries like India which must grapple with a huge population and balancing environment and development. Presenting Union Budget 2025-26, Finance Minister laid stress on the country’s energy transition efforts. 

In the backdrop of the environmental crisis, Nirmala Sitharaman rightly decided to enhance nuclear capacity to 100GW by 2047 from the current 8GW, which is an optimistic proposition. What is significant is the induction of new technology of small modular reactors (SMRs) which will get a support of Rs 20,000 crore Nuclear Energy Mission, for research and development and open the sector to private players.Five indigenously developed SMRs would be operationalised by 2033, and this should steadily be increased in future.In fact, in his recent visit to France, Prime Minister Modi decided to co-produce and co-design these SMRs. 

Former Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar has welcomed the Nuclear Energy Mission, saying 100 GW of nuclear power generation by 2047 was required for India to achieve its declared goal of net-zero emission. Last year, Union Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh had informed Parliament that “Nuclear energy has a vital role in the country's energy transition to net zero as it is a base-load source of clean electricity, available 24X7.” Besides, the nuclear sector had a huge potential to provide the country long-term energy security in a sustainable manner. 

However, India must also flog the anomaly stated by a report of World Inequality Lab (WIL): “The global top 10% are responsible for almost half of global carbon emissions and global top 1% emitters are responsible for more emissions than the entire bottom half of the world’s population”. This reveals no balanced or inclusive development and could be an obstacle in achieving Sustainable Development Goals and reducing inequalities (SDG10) and climate action (SDG13). The per capita emission of the bottom 50% is 1.4 tCO2/person which accounts for 12% of the total emissions. The middle 40% emits 6.1 tCO2/person while the top 10% has 28.7 tCO2/person, representing 40% and 48% share respectively of the total emissions. 

The effect of climate change in tropical and sub-tropical countries has been quite severe, leading to projected revenue losses of over 80% by the end of the century. If the figures for half of the population of the Global South are taken into consideration, their emissions would be around just 6%, while economic losses would be around 82 to 85%. In contrast, the top 50% of the global population accounts for 50% of all emissions and suffers a mere 3% of income losses. 

India has pledged that by 2030 it would cut one billion tonnes of emissions, meet 50% of its energy needs from renewable energy and reduce emission intensity by 45% and increase non-fossil fuel energy to 500GW from 134 GW in 2019. Keeping this in view, India continued to decouple economic growth from its GHG emissions with the emission intensity reducing by 36% between 2005 and 2020. Moreover, in its biennial submission, the country stated that its share of non-fossil fuel sources in the installed electricity generation capacity was 46.5% by October 2024 and total installed capacity of renewable power, including large hydro power, was 203.2GW. India’s cumulative renewable power installed capacity (excluding large hydro projects) increased 1.5 times by 35GW in March 2014 to 156.25GW in 2024. 

It may be mentioned here that, as per IMF estimates, under current policies, India’s emissions will rise 41% by 2030 and keep growing up to 2040. This is obvious keeping in view the fast pace of development. Moreover, costs of renewable energy have to be further brought down and its use popularised. 

The increase in emissions is linked to unsustainable land use, which accounts for 22% of global emissions from agriculture and deforestation. Together, barren land and higher temperatures are pushing the planet closer to critical tipping points – indeed, the Amazon could soon tip carbon dioxide sourced conversion – especially along shorelines – multiplying the impacts of climate hazards. As many as 300 million people are at increased risk of floods and hurricanes, due to the loss of coastal habitats acting as natural buffers. 

Experts have pointed out that transitioning to a sustainable “nature economy” could unlock $10 trillion business opportunities and 395 million jobs by 2030. Every dollar invested in restoring degraded lands has been estimated to bring between $7 to $30 economic returns. In addition, coordinated action on land can help unlock solutions for climate, water, pollution and biodiversity. For example, half of global emission reductions by 2035 could come from the land-use sector while also reversing deforestation, preserving critical habitats, lowering agricultural emissions, reducing food waste, restoring degraded ecosystems and scaling-up nature-based solutions. 

The possibility of reducing emission intensity is indeed quite bleak despite all efforts by most countries. Though in India, renewable energy use has increased, fossil fuel extraction has not declined with increasing demands for such fossil. When and how this will be possible remains a big question but emerging countries like India cannot do without fossil fuels as they are on a fast-track mood.   

Emissions must be reduced in future as the effects are indeed quite hazardous. Recall heat intensity resulted in extreme weather events which caused over 3200 deaths in the country in 2024, with lightning and thunderstorms taking the highest number of lives (1374) followed by floods and heavy rains (1287) and heatwave (459), as per the IMDs Annual Climate Summary 2024. Lightning and thunderstorms took the maximum number of lives in Bihar while floods and heavy rain caused the maximum deaths in Kerala. Besides these two states, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra figured in the list of the top five reporting a bigger number of casualties due to extreme weather events last year. 

In the backdrop, it needs to be pointed that millions of hectares of grassland and sanctuaries are being encroached due to tourism and commerce. Moreover, forests are cleared regularly for industrial parks, mining, commercial plantations and grazing tree cover of 10 million hectares is destroyed every year. Added to this, though four-lane and six-lane highways seem like a major advance, such a development strategy is neither economically sound nor ecologically tenable. Land clearance for roads, bridges, highways, rail connectivity, private construction etc. needs to be judiciously given so that it does not degrade the environment when conservation of nature is critical. 

What is of utmost importance is the greening of the denuded sections of the landscape and in a way that considers plant density, age and biodiversity. Added to this, the thrust on renewable power as also nuclear power can be a counter to the high rates of emission that has become a threat to the environmental crisis.---INFA 

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)