Decarbonization in India: Role of The Government, Corporate, and Citizen

A DEVILISH DUALITY: HOW CEOS CAN SQUARE RESILIENCE WITH NET-ZERO PROMISES

INTRODUCTION

?Global leaders have been endeavoring consistently to address the concerns and implications of carbonization to net zero emission for a long. This threat is grave. It has the capability of our existence. Amid turbulence on the path to net zero, leaders will have to be much agiler to balance resilience with an energy future that is secure, affordable, and clean. We explore the promising five actions which promise relief from the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions. Just passing one year can make an incredible variance.?In November 2021, business leaders assembled with full commitment to showing solidarity up in force in Glasgow at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), pledging to take on the challenge of reaching net-zero greenhouse-gas-emission goals by 2050. Unexpectedly, the path to net zero would suddenly become easy, and commitments made to target nearly 90 percent of CO2?emissions for reduction signaled that the private sector was truly engaged. This is possible due to changes in some manufacturing process replacements and manufacturing machines. The change of the best alternative energy product like fossil oil or hydrogen. ?The major new headwinds began swirling: surging inflation, the war in Europe, energy insecurity, and a potential global recession. Still, governments pressed ahead, passing major climate legislation packages in Europe and the US. More than 3,000 companies have made commitments to net-zero pathways. But the number of companies is growing gradually. At the time of COP26, McKinsey released a?perspective on the requirements?needed to secure a net-zero carbon emission transition.?It was clear, given the challenges of deploying capital at scale, managing economic dislocations, and scaling up supply chains and infrastructure, that the path would not be linear and would include slowdowns and backstepping. Ultimately, sustainable systems are more value-creating than traditional ones. But countries and companies must balance achieved between two desirable but incompatible features like net-zero commitments, affordable to citizens, and security of energy and materials supply.

?As disruptions have deepened, the moment challenges CEOs—an organization’s ultimate integrator—with a diabolical duality. As net-zero has become an organizing principle for business, executives are on the spot to show the design credibly how they will deliver a transition to net zero while building and fortifying resilience against the certain upheaval of ongoing economic and political shocks. The zigs and zags of present conditions will tempt some leaders with exclusive choices—doubling down on fossil fuels, for example, at the expense of new and emerging renewable technologies. Leaders will face multiple calls for their attention, in addition to concerns about how quickly to drive a sustainability agenda forward. We believe that the right response to such challenges has always been a matter of “and,” not “or”—that is, maintaining focus on the long term while adjusting in the face of present conditions rather than opting for one or the other. A resilient stance, being prepared to absorb shocks and poised to accelerate into a changed reality, allows companies to weather not just the current moment but also the future storms that are likely to come their way in a world of rising risks. The task is?neither simple nor easy.?Yet as leaders prepare to gather in Egypt for the 2022 UN Climate Change Conference (COP27), there is also good news: today’s reality is that sustainability, economic competitiveness, affordability, and national security merge as ever. To consider the present situation, CEOs can shape strategy around resilience now to knock value-creating businesses tomorrow as the world continues to head toward net zero in the long run. ?These five core actions help meet the dual imperatives at the heart of a new sustainability strategy. ?The path to net zero was always going to be full of complexities. Recently, several “weather fronts” have emerged, posing significant challenges to leaders across both the private and public sectors.

Energy availability and security

The resulting?energy crisis after the Russian?invasion of Ukraine, in Europe basically, disruption in energy markets can jeopardize the global economy. So, countries are boosting the use of fossil fuels, including coal and gas, and extending the life of conventional energy infrastructure under more pressure. Physical risks are spreading. ?Europe saw a historic heat wave this summer. Floods distressed Pakistan this autumn, and tropical storms raged across Japan, Korea, and China. In the US, Texas saw a first-time grid failure in 2021, with a near miss in California this year. We have to select choices as some entail trade-offs between climate mitigation and adaptation, rebuilding versus relocating, and investing in cooling versus keeping energy consumption down—all of which occur within a limited “envelope” of infrastructure funding.

Affordability

Prices are rising across the globe, driven by?the energy crisis in Europe, the?growing food crisis?resulting from the invasion of Ukraine, and a recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic that has been faster than expected, which has put pressure on supply chains. The outlook is ominously recessionary. There is a growing perception that net zero comes at the expense of affordability, with a zero-sum trade-off. The universal problems of?supply chain?and talent shortages complicate the equation, particularly as the deployment of the new assets and infrastructure needed for the net-zero transition grows. This, in turn, could result in price spikes for the key inputs needed for the net-zero transition. Companies also face growing risks in securing the parts, labor, and specialized skills they need to execute net-zero promises. From heat pumps to recycled textiles and insulation installers to carbon management data scientists, companies are combating to match supply to customer demand.

Governance and regulation

A key tenet of any orderly transition to meeting net-zero goals is demonstrating ongoing governance and cooperation among the public- and private-sector institutions, meeting commitments, and maintaining public support for progress toward cutting greenhouse gases. The war in Ukraine has already reduced the potential for such cooperation. Also, the United States is seeing growing backlash against standardized?environmental, social, and governance (ESG)?reporting requirements and skepticism of ESG funds that some criticize as punishing fossil-fuel producers and hurting local economies. The outlook for aligned standards, requirements and public support is becoming murkier. There is an increasingly popular view that leaders will need to navigate a zero-sum trade-off between addressing climate action headwinds and sticking to their commitments for achieving an orderly net-zero transition. However, while the path to net zero will not be a straight line, and some regions will step back commitments for the short term, the long-term trajectory remains intact.

More important, these discontinuities also create opportunities—and imperatives. We believe that the potential is great to shape a resilient sustainability strategy that creates a virtuous cycle of managing short-term shocks; bolstering prospects for an affordable, clean, and secure energy future; and improving the long-term competitiveness and value creation of companies. In part, this is because competitors may be tempted to pause during this period of turbulence. That creates a chance for those who stay the course to gain strategic distance: Energy independence via accelerated use of renewables and clean power and capture of the full potential of energy efficiency and distributed electricity.?Diversifying the energy supply with renewables, green hydrogen, and green power promotes national energy security and economic competitiveness. In Europe, the invasion of Ukraine and the effort to develop a future free of dependence on Russian gas has prompted Europe to raise its commitment to renewables (alongside imported natural gas in the medium term and possibly nuclear power in the longer term). Of course, energy market resiliency must be built in tandem—for example, by rewarding the firming of capacity in power markets as the share of intermittent power generation grows. Even prior to the invasion of Ukraine, industrial policy across the larger European economies was focusing on clean-energy tech as a source of national competitiveness. Examples include European clean-tech export policies, support for rare-earth minerals needed for new climate tech, and national funding to drive local new-energy industrial growth (such as the US Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act). Companies that operate in this space or serve those in it have clear long-term growth prospects.

New value from existing systems.?It is becoming increasingly apparent that it may be possible to repurpose existing methods of carbon-intensive production with additional enabling technologies to future-proof them for a sustainable future. Numerous examples—such as retrofitting existing industrial production facilities for carbon capture, use, and storage (CCUS); using hydrogen blends in methane carriers; and employing direct air capture (DAC)—are emerging to lower carbon intensity and transform existing systems into cleaner alternatives. Owners and operators of this infrastructure that invest in future-proofing through CCUS, DAC, or other tech stand to make significant gains. Repurposing rather than stranding these assets will not just enable affordability and system resiliency but also provide incumbents with greater confidence that decarbonizing their legacy assets is feasible. Sustainable materials transition.?The energy transition requires the transition of a material. Projected electric-vehicle demand, for example, will raise demand for cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel, and rare-earth minerals, putting further upward pressure on pricing across these commodity classes. Commitments to decarbonize automotive, consumer goods, packaging, and other sectors are also already driving supply–demand shortages in aluminum, plastics, and steel. We expect, for example, a 50 to 60 percent shortage of same-cycled plastics compared with demand in 2030,?driving significant green premiums. If supply eventually meets demand, early movers will most stand to gain. With the current commodity cycle at a peak, cash can be reinvested in nascent materials opportunities that will be in clear demand in the longer term.

New sources of capital.?Investors and incumbents have started a new wave of capital deployment toward net zero, including investments in new materials, new climate tech, and more adaptive supply chains. These investments are increasingly following a “private equity plus” model, with heavily involved investors helping build new green challengers from the outset. Countries and regions with hard-to-abate sectors are also increasingly important sources of climate tech and transition capital as they seek to decarbonize while preserving economic growth. These ventures are in their early stages as voluntary and policy-driven demand materializes and grows. But they demonstrate that while there is some ESG-related backlash,?a broader set of clean investments are continuing to grow

Voluntary carbon market (VCM) development.?A critical pillar of enabling net zero and financing asset decarbonization is the ability to value carbon with liquidity. VCM will be critical. Although the situation is unsettled now, we see expanded dialogue and more concrete actions toward establishing VCM at the country and private-financing levels. For example, several Southeast Asian governments are shaping national voluntary carbon exchanges, and company commitments to voluntary carbon have grown. Reshaped value chains and reindustrialized nations.?In some developed economies, game-changing policies are supporting new net-zero value chain plays. The US Inflation Reduction Act commits $370 billion in climate spending, targeting the creation of new sustainable industries across the country and accelerating clean tech, such as green hydrogen. Another US legislative measure, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, is poised to prompt reindustrialization, replacing value chains based on internal-combustion engines with electric- and battery-based alternatives. In the European Union, the packages will create new winners across industries and reshape value chains in a way that brings affordability to the fore. New forms of public-private partnerships will therefore also need to take shape. Instilling more control within regions and individual countries will enable them to protect against price shocks for citizens. Done well, pursuing these opportunities should create a virtuous cycle for economies among affordability, decarbonization, energy security, job creation, and resilience. Renewable energy is one obvious example with the potential to promote energy security, create high-quality jobs, and reduce emissions in tandem. New sources of capital and VCM could make sustainable investments more affordable, bringing them to market sooner, and successful delivery of these projects would in turn boost returns and attract further capital. Sustainable materials could facilitate the energy transition while creating new value from existing systems and infrastructure. And so on. These examples illustrate the power and possibility of the “and”—a flywheel-like effect that enables meeting security, socioeconomic, and sustainability goals in parallel.

Across these opportunities, incumbents are positioned to succeed more often than not. Every incumbent player, especially in hard-to-abate sectors, has two sets of opportunities: decarbonizing while extending fossil-fuel-based core business (potentially earning green premiums as a result, as early movers in sustainable materials already are) and building new sustainable businesses. Incumbents can use existing cash flows and strong balance sheets to fund new sustainable businesses that lay the foundation for future growth. They can afford to invest for the long haul and place bets across multiple new clean technologies—another advantage when the endpoint is clear but the precise path to get there is not. The pressure to demonstrate real progress and create true value through sustainability is growing. The world has, however, entered an era that is increasingly challenging for CEOs and business leaders to navigate. There is a new strategic paradigm—one with reasonable certainty of where the world needs to be in the medium and long term and tremendous volatility in terms of how and when it will get there. Leaders must build resilience to today’s shocks to build tomorrow’s champions. Some approaches will be easier than others and offer a good starting point.

Accelerate capital deployment with a private-equity mindset

Leading with resilience while navigating toward net zero means participating early in the materials transition and?green-business-building wave?to secure exposure to promising innovations. Earlier-cycle investments have higher risk but also higher returns because they benefit from early policy funding, greater willingness for counterparties to participate (for example, through sustainable aviation fuel contracts, which guarantee demand from airlines that allows investment in supply), new talent, and the opportunity to gain first-mover advantage in nascent and emerging value chains. In many industries, there will be multiple sustainability winners. For example, we expect both hydrogen-fueled and electric vehicles to be part of the 2050 ground transport system. This is another reason to consider an investor mindset—spreading bets across multiple potential investments earlier. Companies can further manage their transition risk by aggressively pursuing operational decarbonization measures that already pay for themselves (for example, through energy efficiency) while making longer-term investments in sustainable infrastructure and building new businesses. Pursuing energy efficiency and rapidly scaling distributed clean heating (for example, via heat pumps) will become a critical lever in Europe to manage the energy crisis.

Play offense through a sustainable value-creation strategy

Two objectives should be paramount: to extend and decarbonize the core business and to build new sustainable businesses in reshaped value chains. This would represent an “Apollo 11 moment” in many industries—a moon shot requiring not just incremental improvements but a wholesale rethinking of how to build, operate, and maintain every sector of the economy. Leaders need to make quantum leaps to meet the moment, by getting smart on climate tech fast, engaging with the innovation ecosystem, and leveraging their engineering and business-building talent. Similarly, a focus on sustainability—and?ESG measures, more broadly—is defensible, pragmatic, and needed. CEOs can articulate their approach to ESG topics proactively by focusing on resilience and value creation, not simply as part of the “right to play” and risk mitigation.

Go beyond net zero

CEOs should also look to make their companies'?net nature positive. Actions include moving ahead in the game on biodiversity, demonstrating stewardship of shared water and air resources, ensuring a responsible supply chain, and contributing to a just transition, among other steps. Adaptation investments to address physical risks will also be critical. Companies able to weather the storm, literally, will have a material advantage. In some instances, sustainability aims come into conflict—for example, lithium brine operations are less carbon intensive than hard-rock extraction but consume far more water. CEOs will need to weigh current trade-offs carefully and invest in innovation that meets multiple aims, “squaring the circle” in an increasingly complex ecosystem. The bar is rising on sustainability; companies need to have a plan for these and other factors.

Build the partnership and ecosystem muscle

CEOs should realize that the challenge of maintaining resiliency while driving toward net zero is too great to go it alone. New public-private partnerships will be needed because many of the emerging energy and materials value chains will require full ecosystem development. Consider, for example, clean-fuel consortiums, such as those developing around hydrogen hubs, and shared CCUS networks. There are also opportunities to partner with competitors on shared tech road maps to mitigate tech risk and to better direct innovation funding.

Aggressively reskill leadership teams, boards, and frontline workers

As companies embrace a sustainable future, they will need new skills. Sustainable fashion, for example, requires fully rethinking design, manufacturing, procurement, marketing, and waste management processes while also better tracking carbon emissions and circularity. Talent across the organizations will need to reskill to meet these new demands. Companies need to identify the skills needed for their more sustainable business models and work toward acquiring them?and?building them internally. Navigating the current turbulent period for the net-zero agenda may require temporary responses that, in some cases, may look like setbacks. They need not be. CEOs who understand the virtues of strategic resilience know that addressing immediate hardship and building a sustainable future can—and should—be pursued at the same time. By maintaining vision, moving nimbly, playing offense, and embracing opportunity instead of recoiling from risk, leaders can improve the future of their businesses and the planet.

DECARBONIZING INDIA: CHARTING A PATHWAY FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH

?This will be a decisive decade. With intentional action, India can accelerate decarbonization at scale while pursuing economic growth. At COP26,?India announced its ambition to become a net-zero emitter by 2070—an important milestone in the fight against climate change. Despite low per-capita emissions (1.8 tons CO2), India is the third-largest emitter globally, emitting a net 2.9 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) every year as of 2019. The bulk of these emissions (about 70 percent) is driven by six sectors: power, steel, automotive, aviation, cement, and agriculture. It is proposed more than 100 decarbonization levers across these key sectors and takes a deeper look at four cross-cutting decarbonization opportunities: green hydrogen; carbon capture, usage, and storage (CCUS); natural climate solutions; and material circularity. We modeled outcomes on India’s net-zero journey along two scenarios: first, the current line-of-sight (LoS) scenario with current (and announced) policies and foreseeable technology adoption; and second, the accelerated scenario with far-reaching policies like carbon pricing and accelerated technology adoption, including technologies like CCUS. Our analysis shows that the benefits of a well-planned, orderly, accelerated transition could outweigh the downsides, given India’s growth outlook.

THE OUTLOOK IN OUR COUNTRY

India has the potential to create 287 gigatons of carbon space for the world.?This amounts to almost half of the global carbon budget for an even chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C. The current pace of emissions intensity reduction is insufficient for India’s emissions curve to bend with the expected growth outlook. In the LoS scenario, India could reduce annual emissions from a historical trajectory of 11.8 GtCO2e to 1.9 GtCO2e by 2070, a 90 percent reduction in economic emissions intensity compared with 2019. It can reach 0.4 GtCO2e by 2050 in the accelerated scenario, with a potential to get to its net zero by 2070 commitment through new technology developments (such as direct air capture) over the next few decades. LoS scenario reductions are challenging, and accelerated scenario reductions are even more so.?There are emerging tailwinds in the form of reducing costs of renewables and electric vehicles (EVs), and the progressive policies being implemented (for example, the implicit carbon tax on transportation fuels of $140 to $240/ton CO2e) are helping the electrification of mobility. Yet, several other actions with significant scale-up potential are needed. For example, renewable capacity addition needs to increase from ten gigawatts (GW) to 40–50 GW per year; hydrogen cost reduction and a carbon price of $50/ton CO2?are needed by 2030 to make green steel competitive (could lead to 211 metric tons (Mt) of steel capacity being built on the low-carbon hydrogen route instead of the coal route by 2045); battery costs have to decline by 40 percent by 2030 and green hydrogen by two-thirds by 2035; a nationwide rollout of charging infrastructure is needed; farmers have to adopt new practices for rice cultivation; targets for circularity have to be met and higher targets set.?There is an urgency to prepare India for orderly and accelerated decarbonization within the current decade.?Over three-fourths of India in 2050 (and 80-plus percent of India in 2070) is yet to be built. Developing this robust infrastructure in India will multiply demand across sectors: power (eightfold), steel (eightfold), cement (threefold), auto (threefold), and food (twofold). If policies are set in place to create the right demand signals within this decade, then India could add low-carbon capacities in the next two decades thereafter. For example, a carbon price of $50 per Mt by 2030 makes green steel competitive (could lead to 211 Mt of steel capacity being built on the low-carbon hydrogen route instead of the coal blast furnace route by 2045).

India benefits from an orderly transition.?India’s transition from thermal power to renewables is expected to decrease the average cost of power supply from INR 6.15 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in the financial year 2020 to INR 5.25 per kWh and INR 5.4 per kWh by 2050 in the LoS and accelerated scenarios, respectively.?Sustainable-farming practices could help generate additional farmer income of INR 3,400 per hectare/year in the LoS scenario, which could increase to INR 4,800 per hectare/year in the accelerated scenario. India may save a cumulative $1.7 trillion in foreign exchange, which may otherwise be spent on energy imports until 2070. In addition, India will have the opportunity to build itself right the first time, minimizing asset stranding. Finally, if India can start manufacturing newer technologies, it has the potential to be a world leader in batteries, electrolyzes, green steel, and other areas.

Energy system shifts.?Fossil fuels, which comprise 75 percent of India’s commercial energy mix today, decline to one-half in the LoS scenario and to one-sixth in the accelerated scenario by 2050 (Exhibit 4). In the accelerated scenario, over 60 percent of India’s refining capacity, 90 percent of its coal mining capacity, and 100 percent of its coal power generation would not be needed. Tax collections from auto fuel could decline to $36 billion by 2050 (from $85 billion currently). Ensuring resources are used appropriately will be vital. For example, the biomass currently being used by households for cooking, which in the future can be used for thermal-power generation, might potentially need to be directed to hard-to-abate sectors like cement.

Pressure on land systems.?In the accelerated scenario, growth and decarbonization combined may require 45 million more hectares of land than is available, of which nearly ten million hectares would be needed for renewable power and eight million for carbon sinks and forests. Innovative land optimization techniques such as maximizing barren land use for renewable power, vertical urbanization, and improved agricultural productivity would be needed to ensure sufficient land for decarbonization.

Moderate impact on household spending and jobs.?A critical consideration is the impact of the accelerated decarbonization on Indian household spending and jobs. We estimate that by 2040, the increases in housing costs resulting from decarbonization would, for the most part, be balanced by the limited impact on food costs (excluding the impact on yields from direct climate change) and a decrease in the costs of energy and transport, assuming an orderly transition. If the transition is disorderly (that is, if the initiatives are carried out at the wrong time or incorrectly), the economically disadvantaged would suffer a more adverse impact. Accelerated decarbonization could transform over 30 million jobs (24 million new jobs could be created while six million existing jobs could be lost) by 2050. While important, the scale of workforce reallocation may be smaller than that from other macro trends (for example, 60 million new workers entering the workforce by 2030). That said, specific communities (such as coal mining and associated enterprises in Eastern India) could be adversely impacted, requiring support, reskilling, and alternative industrial development in particular areas.

Large funding needed (3.5–6 percent of GDP), frontloaded, but ‘in the money.’?India may need an estimated $7.2 trillion of green investments until 2050 to decarbonize in the LoS scenario and an additional $4.9 trillion in the accelerated scenario. Fifty percent of the investments needed for abatement between the LoS and the accelerated scenario is in the money, particularly across the renewable energy, auto, and agriculture sectors; other sectors would likely need policy support from the government. The net spend (Capex minus OPEX) will need to be frontloaded. As an illustration, net operational savings, of $1.8 trillion would be needed from 2030–40 and $600 billion from 2040–50 between the LoS and accelerated scenarios. All stakeholders need to come together and act now to accelerate India’s decarbonization. The government could provide policy and regulatory support to make projects across sectors economically viable. These could include providing incentives for the use of EVs and fuel cell EVs by balancing taxation, simplifying regulations for authorizing and installing new power and grid installations, creating demand signals for higher-cost green materials like steel, and generating support for localizing electrolyze manufacturing. Support would also be required to ensure a just transition that minimizes impact on low-income households. These actions need to happen in the right sequence to avoid energy shortages, price increases, and transition disorderliness. Achieving technological breakthroughs would require consistent public and private investment. It would also require willingness among business leaders and policymakers to adopt new technologies, for example, long-duration storage technologies to capture the seasonality of renewable sources, advancement in fuel cell technology, and improvements in recycling technologies.

?Against this background, we propose the following ten actions to accelerate India's decarbonization:

Lay out a detailed medium-term decarbonization plan?with sector-specific priorities and policy frameworks that account for interdependencies across sectors and provide demand signals to guide corporates to invest.

Accelerate implementation of a compliance carbon market (within three years).?This would also require the creation of demand signals, especially in hard-to-abate sectors, and incentives linked to investments in newer technologies like CCUS.

Enable banks to support the transition, catalyzed by a green-transition bank.?Banks could be asked to come up with their investment glide paths within one to two years and build the necessary capability for assessing risks in these new spaces.

Accelerate renewable adoption in the power sector?to scale up capacity addition by four times and to deepen market reforms with a 30-year outlook in a manner that ensures a stable grid fed predominantly by infirm power.

Empower a nodal authority to define a national land-use plan.?Lay clear land-use guidelines for optimized use across urbanization, industrial needs, carbon sinks, agriculture, and renewables.

Create a resilient indigenous manufacturing capability and increase investment in cleantech R&D.?Efforts would be needed to develop local raw-material resources (such as rare earth), secure materials from elsewhere in the world, and produce equipment locally through mechanisms like production-linked incentive (PLI).

Evaluate five carbon capture and storage hubs?in Gujarat (Jamnagar), Odisha (Paradeep), Rajasthan (Barmer), Maharashtra (Pune), and Andhra Pradesh (Vizag) potentially in a public-private partnership for utilization and storage of captured carbon.

Create a national circularity mission?with recycling hubs in the top 20 Indian cities (contributing 35 percent of municipal solid waste), mandated targets on recycling rates, recycled raw-material use (for example, blending norms), and landfill levies.

Enhance the National Hydrogen Mission?with the government playing a key role in accelerating demand through blending mandates, boosting cost competitiveness via capital subsidies and R&D investments, and enabling export opportunities via international trade agreements.

Empower companies to play on the front foot,?evaluating investment opportunities that this green trend will unlock, aligned with India’s national plans or opportunities opened up by the decarbonization of other countries (for example, green-hydrogen derivative exports). India needs to take thoughtful actions now to set itself up for an accelerated and orderly transition. Looking beyond the short term and laying the foundation for this transformation within this next decade is imperative for a decarbonized India and the world.

India’s green transition

Green ambition.?EV-charging stations, climate tech start-ups, and corporate India’s focus on sustainability are all signs of activity in India’s clean-energy transition. Investors are increasingly funding companies working in green technologies. India’s climate tech businesses snapped up roughly $2 billion from private investors, out of a global pot of $27 billion in similar investments. Homegrown entrepreneurs are founding companies in areas such as EV charging and carbon accounting, devoting energy and effort to helping the country cut carbon emissions.?

A threat to health.?Pollution is substantially cutting short the life expectancy of Indians. Poor air quality decreases the average Indian’s life expectancy by five years, while in Delhi, air pollution reduces life expectancy by a decade, according to a University of Chicago report. Dust, soot, and other contaminants in the air can shorten life expectancy more than smoking, per the report. Decarbonizing India’s economy should therefore be treated with great urgency, which requires the rapid use of next-generation technologies, experts say. Sustainable-farming practices could help generate additional farmer income of INR 3,400 per hectare per year in the line-of-sight scenario.

Net zero by 2070.?India is aiming to reach net-zero emissions by 2070, an important milestone in the fight against climate change that was announced at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26). Despite having low greenhouse-gas emissions when calculated per person, India is the world’s third-largest emitter, with roughly 70% of emissions driven by six sectors (including power, steel, and automotive). Decarbonizing the country could potentially create 287 gigatons of carbon space for the world.

?CONCLUSION

Significant challenges.?To fulfill India’s goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2070, the country needs a large amount of funding. From now until 2050, India may need to invest $7.2 trillion to $12.1 trillion (3.5% to 6.0% of cumulative GDP through this period) in green technologies. But when it comes to decarbonizing India, funding is not the only challenge. There’s also the addition of renewable capacity and the reduction of battery and hydrogen costs, among others.

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See?ten actions to accelerate India’s decarbonization.