Author: Saurabh Thakur[i] 26 June 2020
Amidst the furore over the Sino-Indian border tensions in the past a few weeks, two key developments were brushed off the headlines. The first was the commencement of the coal auction process for commercial mining by PM Narendra Modi and the second was the publication of the first Assessment of Climate Change over the Indian Region published by the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences.
The rising numbers of COVID19 cases in India and a sharp decline in economic growth over the past year have facilitated the passing of the contentious decision of opening up the state controlled 41 coal mining blocks to 100 per cent foreign direct investment. Although India is the second largest coal consumer in the world, the demand for coal has seen a slump in the past a few years, largely due to the plummeting energy demand as well as the falling costs of renewable sources of energy. The PM described his government’s decision, which is a part of his push towards ‘Aatamnirbhar Bharat’ (Self-reliant India) in the aftermath of the COVID19 pandemic, as a key move in the direction of energy security and at the same time, a critical employment opportunity in some of the most backward regions in the country.
Despite its uncompetitive outlook, the desperate push towards coal has surprised the policymakers and activists all over the country. The former environment minister Jairam Ramesh described the decision as a ‘triple disaster’ as these coal blocks are going to encroach on to the protected forest covers, and lead to heavy air pollution and other environmental harm. Some of these coal blocks are located in the biodiversity-rich protected lands in central India- Hasdeo Arand forests, Lemru elephant reserve and the Mand river catchment area and Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve.
The decision is also puzzling because India has committed to an ambitious climate target under the Paris Agreement, and has heavily invested in cleaner energy sources as part of this commitment. The decision also comes in the same week when the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) published a first of its kind national assessment report which predicts that, in the worst-case scenario, the temperatures in India could rise up 4.4 degrees by the end of the century.
The frequency of warm days and nights could also see a jump by 55 per cent and 70 per cent respectively. Even under an intermediate scenario, the rise could be as high as 2.4 degrees Celsius, which is in breach of the two-degree target agreed upon under the Paris Agreement. The report further warns of a steep rise in Indian Ocean warming patterns which witnessed a visibly higher sea surface temperature rise of 1 degree Celsius, compared to the global average of 0.7 degrees, between the period of 1951-2015. A similarly disturbing trend has been predicted for the summer monsoon precipitation over India, where the frequency of dry spells and extreme wet spells are risen in the past seventy years, largely due to the radiative effects of anthropogenic aerosol production. The report further assessed a steep rise in droughts and sea-level rise during the same period and the likely projections hold a dire warning for the Indian subcontinent.
These two developments bring India, a full circle to its long-standing dilemma of balancing economic growth and environmental action. The Indian government has opted for the route which may jeopardise the environment gains made since India began to take greater responsibility on the climate action front. The Paris Agreement pushed for disinvestment from coal, and a recent report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) predicted that the COVID19 pandemic could trigger higher investment in renewable power generation in India. In the year 2019-20, India’s renewable sector delivered more than two-thirds of its new generating capacity and an 80 per cent decline in the rate of thermal power installations.
The question, therefore, arises, who will be willing to invest in coal as the world moves towards cleaner fuel technology? India’s national electricity plan calls for an additional 70 GW of new coal-fired plants, but as the pandemic intensifies, it is exposing the chinks in this policy and raising warning signs about the long-term viability of coal. The dire warnings of the National Assessment Report indicate that the Indian subcontinent will be one of the worst affected regions in the world and therefore the questions of climate change and sustainable energy transitions cannot be kicked down the road any further. India’s nationally determined commitments under the Paris accord of 2015 displayed its intent in dealing with the wicked challenge of climate change; this was a critical departure from the earlier position where India refused to take on mitigation responsibilities and foregrounded the question of economic growth and poverty as its primary domestic challenges. However, the increasing pressures of unemployment, the slump in economic growth and falling energy demand will likely force the hand of the government towards coal.
This decision holds a global significance as India has some of the highest reserves of coal in the world. Its decision to unlock the coal mining industry should not be reduced to a domestic cost-benefits question, as the rise in production of coal impacts any global efforts towards decarbonisation and jeopardises efforts at closing the gap to the two degrees target by 2050. A net benefit of a systematic phase-out of coal outruns its cost as it brings a diverse set of positive consequences for biodiversity, land use, land cover change (LULCC), healthcare and pollution control. A prolonged COVID19 crisis, especially in a developing country like India, will carry enormous consequences for both the socio-economic well-being of its citizens as well as the energy pathways to a sustainable global future.
[i] The author is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He can be reached at thakcur@gmail.com.