Climate Transparency - Brown to Green Report 2018: Assessing the G20 Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy

Most of the major economies have adopted sustainable energy use and a transition towards lower carbon growth as an explicit objective of their development policy. In India, the proportion of people having access to electricity dramatically increased from 43.3% in 1990 to 84.5% in 2016. Currently, coal plays a crucial role with a share of more than 50% in the primary energy mix in India. This makes the energy transition in the country a major challenge. While in the recent years, renewables have taken a stride in the country, renewables remain only 6% of the primary energy supply and 16% of electricity generation. India has focused on reducing its carbon emissions intensity by 33 to 35% by 2030 from 2005 levels. Given the country's suitable conditions and high potential, the government aims to achieve a rapid rise of the renewables targeting renewable capacity of 175 GW by 2022. By 2030, India aims to achieve 40% of electricity capacity through non-fossil fuel sources.

While proactive policy domestically is essential to India's energy transition, a conducive international environment is also required. India's energy transition can be supported by international technology deployment and innovation, investment and public finance support, and policy learning. What happens globally is therefore important for India's energy transition.

The Climate Transparency initiative, of which TERI is the Indian partner, aims to enhance ambitious climate actions in the G20 countries. Its annual flagship report provides a comprehensive overview and the trends for the G20 in terms of emissions, policies and their performance, finance and energy transition. This event is proposed to provide information on the global results and initiate discussions around the country report of India.