India will spend USD 316 billion (about Rs 23 lakh crore) in the decade to 2030 towards de-carbonisation, with a high proportion of the investment to be allocated to renewable sources of energy, a foreign brokerage said on Wednesday. The investment will be in addition to the estimated Rs 6 lakh crore or USD 84 billion already spent since the country joined the Paris climate accord in 2015, Bofa Securities said.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the Glasgow summit, the brokerage’s head of research Amish Shah said India has been one of the most active states on-ground action and pointed to the fast-paced migration to vehicular emission norms as a case in point.
India is also right in not declaring a target for achieving carbon neutrality, as is being done by all the other major economies of the world, he added. Shah said he expects India to argue in favour of looking at carbon targets in the context of per-capita consumption rather than an overall perspective at the forthcoming meeting in Glasgow.
The brokerage said investments of over Rs 14,051 lakh crore will be going towards a shift to renewable sources of energy, which will be followed by Rs 4,939 lakh crore of investments in rail freight capacity expansion and Rs 2,044 lakh crore in metro projects across many urban centres.
According to its estimates, the de-carbonisation efforts will help India save over 106 GW of energy between 2015-2030, and cut carbon emissions by 1.1 billion tonnes by 2030.
Shah said that when seen in the context of annual energy consumption of 150 GW per year, the energy-saving through the investments will be much more evident. He noted that India will not rapidly adopt nuclear energy as a substitute to power its economy, and the share of the source will be under 10 per cent in the overall energy mix.
A bulk of the investments in this journey will be done by the private sector, Shah said, adding that nearly a fourth of the top 100 companies have already announced their intent to be carbon neutral even without a mandate on the same. Other areas that will witness investments include improvements in coal plant technology, shift from diesel to solar in irrigation pumps, rail electrification, increasing the share of natural gas and electric vehicle charging stations, as per the research.
