India updates climate targets as energy crisis bites

NEW DELHI – India on March 25 announced a long-awaited update to its climate commitments, pledging to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in its electricity generation capacity to 60 per cent by 2035, up from current levels that already exceed half its current capacity.

The targets, though seen as conservative and weak by some, have been welcomed as a demonstration of India’s continued commitment to its long-term shift away from fossil fuels, especially amid geopolitical challenges, energy supply disruptions and wavering international commitment to climate pledges.

“For me, it’s more the direction of travel to renewables than the quantitative targets themselves that is worth noting, especially when other countries are retreating from climate commitments,” Ms Aarti Khosla​​, founder of Climate Trends, a consultancy focused on sustainability and environmental issues, told The Straits Times.

India, the world’s most populous country and third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has faced pressure to cut emissions as it tries to meet rising energy demand for its economy that is expected to become the world’s third-largest before 2030.

India added an estimated record 48 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity in 2025, compared with about 9GW of new coal power capacity the same year.

The latest targets announced as part of its third nationally determined contribution (NDC) plans are more than a year late. NDCs are non-binding national climate plans under the United Nations’ Paris Agreement through which countries list specific actions to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Among other goals under the updated climate plan, New Delhi has also pledged to reduce its emissions intensity – the amount of emissions per unit of gross domestic product – by 47 per cent by 2035, compared with 2005 levels. India has already reduced its emissions intensity by 36 per cent during 2005 to 2020.

It has also pledged to expand its carbon sink by creating additional forest and tree cover to between 3.5 billion and four billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent by 2035. This is up from 2.29 billion tonnes in 2021. Trees use CO2 as they grow, storing carbon in their branches, trunks and roots.

India has already met one of its earlier NDC targets ahead of time: It achieved a 2030 target of 50 per cent installed electricity capacity from non-fossil fuels in June 2025.

CO2 emissions edge up

India’s CO2 emissions also registered the slowest annual increase in more than two decades in 2025, according to a March 26 analysis by the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) for UK-based climate website Carbon Brief.

They grew by just 0.7 per cent in 2025, as record clean-energy additions and weak power demand curbed the rise in fossil-fuel use. This is a sharp slowdown from the growth of 4 per cent to 11 per cent in the preceding four years, excluding the impact of Covid-19 in 2020.

The latest NDC targets have come when India is grappling with the disruption of fossil fuel supplies from West Asia, something it is highly reliant on. The war on Iran has put pressure on nations to boost domestic renewable energy to cut their reliance on costly and unpredictable fuel imports.

“The timing of these targets seems to suggest India’s policymakers are using the current disruption in the global energy supply to reinforce the strategic necessity of scaling up non-fossil fuel capacity to ensure long-term energy security,” Mr Harjeet Singh, climate activist and founding director of Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, told ST.

India’s latest target of having 60 per cent of its energy generation capacity based on non-fossil fuels by 2035 is, however, lower than what is projected by its Central Electricity Authority (CEA), indicating a conservative global pledge but higher domestic ambitions.

According to its National Generation Adequacy Plan for the period between April 2026 and March 2036, 70 per cent of its forecast 1,121GW installed power capacity by 2035-2036 is set to come from non-fossil sources.

Solar alone is projected to cross 45 per cent (500GW) of India’s energy mix by March 2036, making it the single largest contributor to India’s electricity pie, ahead of coal for the first time.

Cautious target

The lower NDC target of 60 per cent is in keeping with India’s past record of “cautiously optimistic” international climate targets, said CREA director and co-founder Nandikesh Sivalingam.

“It definitely could have done better by setting more ambitious targets this time, but I think India wants to ensure that whatever is committed to is delivered, instead of being overly ambitious and playing catch-up later,” he told ST.

India could achieve the 60 per cent non-fossil capacity target by, or even before, 2030 under the policies it already has in place, Climate Action Tracker (CAT) said on March 26. CAT is an international scientific project that tracks government climate action around the globe.

“India has missed an opportunity to come up with a national, economy-wide 2035 target to cut greenhouse gas emissions,” said CAT India expert Nandini Das in a statement. According to CAT’s calculations, the new targets will allow India’s emissions to continue rising and remain far higher than the levels India could achieve in practice.

But the conservative Indian target, Mr Singh told ST, should also be seen as a reflection of weak international climate financial support as well as poor technology transfer from developed to developing countries.

Developed countries have consistently failed to provide adequate climate financing, and around 85 per cent of renewable energy investment in India comes from domestic sources.

“India and other major developing countries have all been left on their own by the global system,” noted Mr Singh, adding that India can further accelerate its domestic efforts if historical polluters meet their “obligation to provide adequate climate finance”.

The latest energy supply disruption because of the conflict in West Asia has also led India to increase its short-term reliance on coal, which remains an integral component of India’s energy mix.

The Power Ministry has reportedly directed power plants reliant on imported coal to operate at full capacity for three months from April 1 to avoid any electricity shortage amid the estimated peak energy demand of 270GW during this summer.

Coal still key

According to the CEA’s latest plan, coal will still remain India’s second-largest source of energy at 315GW, accounting for over a third of its total capacity of 1,121GW by 2035-2036.

“Coal will remain an important component of India’s energy mix because it is impossible to put an expiry date on it at the moment,” said Ms Khosla. “And the world has not created the kind of conditions India needs to put an expiry date on coal, especially the absence of finance, multilateral support frameworks as well as discussions around equity.”

But she noted that renewables in India have “come quite in the forefront”, with new coal plants already proving more expensive to build and commission than new solar and wind ones. More domestic investments, including in ensuring better battery storage, will generate greater confidence in renewables, she added.

However, a key challenge ahead for India will be to ensure it is able to use its large renewables capacity effectively to generate clean energy and cut actual emissions. While non-fossil fuels capacity has crossed more than half of its total installed capacity (52 per cent as at January), generation from renewables still remains low. In February, it was less than 23 per cent of its total energy generation.

Energy generation from renewables remains curtailed not just because of intermittency of the sun and wind but also limited storage infrastructure, grid constraints and poor financial health of state electricity boards.

“The shift in generation from fossil fuels to renewables is going to be the main story for India in the next decade,” said Mr Sivalingam.