India’s huge need for electricity is a problem for the planet

Of the world’s 1.3 billion who live without access to power, a third — around 300 million — live in rural India in states such as Bihar. Nighttime satellite images of the sprawling subcontinent show the story: Vast swaths of the country still lie in darkness.

India, the third-largest emitter of greenhouses gases next to China and the United States, has taken steps to address climate change in advance of the global talks in Paris this year — pledging a steep increase in renewable energy by 2030.

But India’s leaders say that the huge challenge of extending electric service to its citizens means a hard reality — that the country must continue to increase its fossil fuel consumption, at least in the near term, on a path that could mean a threefold increase in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, according to some estimates.

If India’s carbon emissions continue to rise, by 2040 it will overtake the United States as the world’s second-highest emitter, behind only China, according to estimates by the International Energy Agency.

Yet the Indian government has long argued that the United States and other industrialized nations bear a greater responsibility for the cumulative damage to the environment from carbon emissions than developing nations — with Modi urging for “climate justice” and chiding Western nations to change their wasteful ways.

Total carbon dioxide emissions for India were 1.7 tons per capita in 2012, the more recent complete data available, compared with 6.9 for China and 16.3 for the United States, according to the World Resources Institute. Officials say they are keenly aware of India’s vulnerability to the impacts of climate change — from rising sea levels, drought, flooding and food security.

Yet the government says it must depend on fossil fuels to bring an estimated 30 percent of the population out of extreme poverty.

Most of the country’s power-generating capacity still comes from around 125 coal-fired power plants, but the government has mandated that plants constructed after 2017 be built with more efficient “super critical” technology. As many as 140 coal-fired plants are planned or in the pipeline, according to Arunabha Ghosh, the chief executive of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water in New Delhi.

India also wants to double its coal production in the next five years, to more than 1 billion tons annually, with plans to open 60 more coal mines. India has the world’s fifth-largest coal reserves, and officials say cheap, plentiful coal will make up the lion’s share of the country’s energy budget well beyond 2030.

“India could be consuming as much as 1.8 billion to 3 billion tons of coal annually by 2050,” Ghosh said, noting that this is a “business as usual” calculation and does not factor in India’s new push for renewable energy. “This is still lower than the amount of coal that was burnt in China on an annual basis in the last four to five years.”