08/01/2021 - Energy

KEY POINTS

·        During the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21), the Indian government pledged to generate about 40 per cent of electricity from non-fossil sources by 2030.

·        However, despite talks of renewable energy and the need for an energy transition, coal is on the rise in India and it is in the process of deepening its ties to fossil energy carriers rather than moving away from this type of energy use.

·        India is now on the path to extract one billion tonnes of coal annually by 2023-24. Already, auctions for coal mining concessions to private companies have been launched for 41 coal blocks in the country.

Social, environmental costs

·        From extraction to transportation and combustion, coal is a contested resource and a commodity that does not address India’s interlinked socio-ecological challenges of poverty and unemployment, environmental degradation, and the climate crisis.

·        Coal mine workers and communities around coal mines face many adverse diseases, prominent among them pneumoconiosis (commonly known as black lung disease) due to the inhalation of coal dust, as well as diseases due to polluted drinking water.

Coal-phase out

·        As temperatures continue to rise, and heat waves and air pollution continue to plague India’s citizens, the country has the ability to move to more sustainable forms of energy.

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