Actions needed to decarbonise India

As per recent Mckinsey report ‘Decarbonising India: Charting a pathway for sustainable growth,’ that presents an in-dept analysis of the opportunities and mechanisms to decarbonise the five sectors that contribute to around 70 percent of India’s overall emissions — #power, #steel, #transportation, #cement and #agriculture.

Ten actions which may decarbonise India and enable environment to achieve net zero goal are listed below.

1) Lay out a detailed medium-term (5, 15, 25-year) decarbonisation plan with sector-specific priorities and policy frameworks (product/service specific #ghg accounting & reduction action, scope 1, 2 & 3) that provide the demand signals and a steady hand, allowing corporates to invest with a clear path in sight.

2) Accelerate implementation of Compliance #carbonmarkets (within three years) which would create demand signals to accelerate decarbonisation especially in hard-to-abate sectors and incentivise investments in NCS and newer technologies like CCUS.

3) Enable banks to support the transition catalysed by a green transition bank. Banks can be asked to come up with their investment glide paths and build the necessary capability to assess risks (including climatic physical & transition risks) in the new spaces.

4) Accelerate adoption of #renewables in the power sector to quadruple capacity addition and deepen market reforms with a 30-year outlook in a manner that ensures a stable grid fed predominantly by infirm power (from #wind and #solar)

5) Empower a nodal authority to define a national land-use plan, lay clear land-use guidelines for optimised use across urbanisation, #industrial needs, #carbon sinks, #agriculture, and renewables.

6) Create resilient indigenous #manufacturing capability and increase investment in cleantech R&D in areas like #batteries, #EVs, #solar panels and #electrolysers.

7) Evaluate five Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) hubs in #gujarat (Jamnagar), #odisha (Paradeep), #rajasthan (Barmer), #maharashtra (Pune) and #andhrapradesh (Vizag) potentially in public-private partnership to utilise and store captured carbon. These hub locations are within 500km of 70 percent of India’s point-source emissions. The captured carbon can be transported through pipelines to existing oil fields for storage.

8) Create a national circularity mission with recycling hubs in top 20 Indian cities (contributing 35% of municipal solid waste), mandated targets on recycling rates, recycled raw material use (e.g., blending norms) and landfill levies. This needs enforcement of existing and upcoming Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations along with demand signals for recycled products (e.g., through carbon pricing on emission-heavy virgin raw-material).

9) Enhance the National Hydrogen Mission by creating stronger demand signals and expanding the use of green hydrogen in hard-to-abate sectors like steel. India could also benefit from faster evolution of carbon prices in other geographies and become an exporter of green hydrogen embedded products in the short term.

10) Companies can aim to play on the front foot, evaluating investment opportunities that these green trends will unlock, aligned with India’s national plans or opportunities opened by decarbonisation of other countries (e.g., green hydrogen derivative exports). Companies would need to focus reallocate capital, reskill their people and engage with the government.