CO2 Emissions India

KAZIM RAZA SYED

ME3 2015-17
Submitted as a partial fulfillment towards EEE policy course;
Course Instructor Prof. A. Fazekas

Structure of Presentation
Fundamental Notions
The Indian Context:
Energy related parameters of the country such as population, GDP/cap, etc.

Energy consumption of India

Comparison of GDP and energy use of India with other countries
Emission of CO2 by India (from three different sources)
Important conclusions
Problems to be solved
Indian Government initiatives towards climate change problem
Sources of data

Fundamental notions

Gross domestic product (GDP):

It is defined as an aggregate measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of
all resident, institutional units engaged in production (plus any taxes, and minus any subsidies, on
products not included in the value of their outputs). GDP/capita is calculated by dividing the GDP
value of country by its population in that respective year.

Tonnes of oil equivalent (TOE):

The tonne of oil equivalent (toe) is a unit of energy defined as the amount of energy released by
burning one tonne of crude oil. 1 toe = 41.868 gigajoules (GJ)

Energy intensity
Energy intensity is a measure of the energy efficiency of a nation's economy. It is calculated as units
of energy per unit of GDP.

The Indian Context

Land area cover = 3.287 million Km2 (7th Largest in world) Data Year
2014 [1]
Population = over 1.276 billion (2nd highest after China) Data year
2014 [2]
Percentage of population below national poverty line = 21.9% Data
year 2011 [3]
Literacy rate (% of population above 15 yrs) = 69% of total
population above 15 yrs. Data year = 2014 [4]
Forest cover = 23.7 % of total area Data year = 2014 [5]

ENERGY CONSUMPTION

ENERGY CONSUMPTION (MTOE) = 511.54 (yr 2012) [6]

Share of Industry consumption = 40%
Share of Transport consumption = 14%
Share of Residential consumption = 36%

China, India show considerable

growth in consumption
US shows growth till 2000 and
slight fall after 2000
Germany shows a continuous
falling trend

Comparison of GDP and Energy use

Indian GDP/capita (US dollars) [7] as compared to Energy use (kg of oil equivalent
/capita [8] for different countries world wide:
GDP/cap and Energy
use/cap show similar
60000
trend for different
51456.7
50000
46,679.30
countries
43931.7
40000
30000
20000
10000
0

6264.6
1449.7 624

2143

India
China
GDP/cap (US dollars) yr 2014

3886

3546

6815

Germany
Japan
United States
Energy use (kg of oil equivalent/capita)

India and China have

much lower figures in
GDP/cap and Energy
use/cap, due to high
population in both
countries

Emissions of CO2 in India

Carbon dioxide emission (Kilo tonnes of CO2) of India from various databases:

World Bank database [9] gives the

highest values of CO2 emissions for
each year. (1990-2011, Max = 2.074
Giga-tonnes of CO2 in 2011)

2300000
2100000
1900000
1700000
1500000
1300000

World Bank database

EC database
IEA database

European Commissions Joint Research

Centre EDGAR database [10] gives
intermediate values of CO2 emission
(1990-2013, Max= 2.0715 Giga-tonnes
of CO2 in 2013)

1100000
900000
700000
500000
1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014

International Energy Agency (IEA) [11]

gives the lowest values of CO2
emissions for each year. (1990-2012,
Max.= 1.95 Giga-tonnes of CO2 in 2012)
WORLD AVG. = 34.65 GW in 2011 [12]

Important conclusions

Indias GDP is increasing and simultaneously the CO2 emissions will also increase.
Indias Energy use per capita is very less but still it is contributing more in overall CO2
emission as compared to developed nations like Germany. In future as the country becomes
more developed, slight increase in CO2 emission/capita will lead to huge increase in overall
CO2 emissions. This can be attributed to large population of country which is still expected
to grow further.
The energy consumption is mainly for Industrial (~40%) and residential (~34%) usages.
Therefore reduction of energy usage by utilizing higher efficiency solutions should be of
priority for reducing energy demand. Promotion of renewable energy solutions such as Solar
PV for both these sectors will also be significant.
The CO2 emissions have reached 2.07 giga tonnes of CO2 which is roughly 6% of world
average CO2 emissions during 2011-12.
About 21% population is below poverty line (<1$/day) and about 40% population is
illiterate. This implies many people are impervious to issues of climate change & CO2
emissions, and they have different priorities in life.

Problems to be solved:

The biggest problem India faces similar to China is the growing population. Since
the per capita energy usage is less now, Indias CO2 emissions are comparable to
other countries. India has to reduce its population growth rate.
Education and literacy is still very low. This needs to be tackled immediately. This
will in turn lead the general public to be aware about problems of climate change
and more responsible towards energy wastage.
Investment in renewable energy technology. Since currently most renewable
energy technology suffer from energy storage issues, India should look towards
other low carbon emission solutions of generation such as nuclear and hydo-power.
Thus India should try to have a healthy mixture of low-carbon emission
technologies thereby simultaneously retaining the grid stability.
Many villages in India are still not fully connected to grid and often rely on fuel
combustion for electricity generation. Off-grid renewable energy solutions should
be setup by government for these villages until grid expansion is completed.

Indian Government Initiatives:

Adoption of Integrated Energy Policy 2006

10

The Integrated Energy Policy has following main objectives [13]:

1. Promotion of energy efficiency in all sectors
2. Emphasis on mass transport
3. Emphasis on renewables including biofuels plantation.
4. Accelerated development of nuclear and hydropower for clean energy.
5. Focused R&D on several clean energy related technologies.
To realize these objectives a National Action Plan for Climate Change was adopted
which includes eight missions to mitigate Indias rising contribution in Global climate
change as well as promote sustainability in the overall resource utilization.

Indian Government Initiatives:

National Action plan on Climate Change (NACC)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

National
National
National
National
National
National
National
National

11

Solar mission
mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency
mission on Sustainable Habitat
water mission
mission for sustaining the Himalayan
mission for a Green India
mission for Sustainable Agriculture
mission for Strategic Knowledge for Climate change.

These initiatives also include sub-mission such as Rural electrification project using
renewable energy and Carbon credit systems under Green India mission.

Sources of data
[1]
[2]
[3]

12

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India)
World Bank Database: Total population (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL)
World Bank Database: Poverty headcount at national poverty lines (% of population)
(http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.NAHC )
[4] World Bank Database: Literacy rate (% of population above 15 yrs)
(http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ADT.LITR.ZS )
[5] World Bank Database: Forest cover (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.FRST.ZS )
[6] International Energy Agency: Total Final Consumption (Mtoe)
(http://energyatlas.iea.org/?subject=-1002896040 )
[7] World Bank Database: GDP/capita (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD )
[8] World Bank Database: Energy use (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.PCAP.KG.OE )
[9] World Bank Database: CO2 emission (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.KT )
[10] EU commission, Joint Research Centre, EDGAR- Emission database for Global Atmospheric Research
( http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/overview.php?v=CO2ts1990-2013 )
(contd..)

Sources of data

13

[11] International Energy Agency: CO2 emission (http://energyatlas.iea.org/?subject=1378539487 )

[12] World Bank database: CO2 emissions
(http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=2&country=&series=EN.ATM.CO2E.KT&
period )
[13] National Action Plan on Climate Change, Government of India, Prime Ministers Council on Climate
change (http://www.moef.nic.in/modules/about-the-ministry/CCD/NAP_E.pdf )