COP28: India doubles down on right to increase coal power and CO2 emissions
By Paul Homewood
"India cannot survive without coal as it has no other options."
India has committed itself to greater coal-fired generation use ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai and is set to voice developing nations’ demands for a greater share of the carbon emissions budget at the Nov. 30-Dec. 12 summit.
India is the world’s third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide after China and the US, with a booming economy driving electricity demand up 9.6% in fiscal year 2023.
"There will be pressure again on those countries who use coal," RK Singh, minister of power and new and renewable energy, said Nov. 6. "Our point of view is that we are not going to compromise with the availability of power for growth."
Public sector power companies are constructing about 27 GW of thermal plants — almost all coal — but this is insufficient, according to Singh. The country needs "at least 80 GW" of new capacity to meet future demand, he said.
India generated 149.66 TWh of electricity in September, of which 108.70 TWh, or 73%, was coal-fired, data from Central Electricity Authority showed. The coal-fired figure was up 17% year on year.
S&P Global Commodity Insights forecasts the share of coal-fired generation in India’s power mix will rise to 77% by 2025 before falling to 71% in 2030 and 52% by 2050.
"India cannot survive without coal as it has no other options," said Rashika Gupta, research and analysis director at S&P Global. "Nuclear and hydro take a decade to build, gas is not available, and LNG is very expensive. India’s forte has always been coal — it knows how to operate it, and there is indigenous capacity to build it."
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
The woman from JSO on GBNews will burst into tears reading this. Meanwhile, the UK needs to get fracking to reduce energy cost for both domestic and business and to add taxes to the Treasury.
Good for them.
Be nice to hear ‘the UK cannot survive without coal, its only option is poverty and economic suicide.’
Highlights the Net Zero nonsense where a country has no serious alternative.
Well Done India. With their nuclear and aerospace capability, do we still send them foreign aid?
Of course!
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), which distributes aid, sent India £33.4 million in aid cash in 2022/23. But the FCDO’s annual report, published this week, reveals that the total is set to rise to £57 million in 2024/25
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/18/britain-foreign-aid-india-space-rocket-launch/#:~:text=The%20Foreign%2C%20Commonwealth%20and%20Development,57%20million%20in%202024%2F25.
The Paris Accord makes a rapid acceleration of energy usage by emerging countries a de facto requirement. India, after China, understand what they were signing, presumably western politicians did too. Only those who read the left-wing western media are oblivious.
“ “India cannot survive without coal as it has no other options.”
Nor has the UK!
As most self respecting scientists know, man-made carbon dioxide has virtually no effect on the climate. Provided dirty emissions are cleaned up we should be using our substantial store of fossil fuels while we develop a sustainable mix of alternatives including nuclear power. There is no climate crisis and we have no control over it anyway. We just need to adapt to the climate nature gives us as we always have done. In any case statistically we are overdue for another ice age.
The most sensible comment I’ve read for some time. If only our politicians would see sense.
The problem with our politicians is they still believe there are more votes in the lie of green zealotry than in truth & rationality.
Look forward to hearing this reported on the BBC. I will not hold my breath…..
Reality is winning.
A little off subject but an article in the Daily Mail today informs us that a Virgin Atlantic 787 Dreamliner took off from Heathrow for New York using food waste and biofuel from corn production. Sustainable aviation fuel. (SAF) Our new transport secretary, Mark Harper, claims that this adventure cost the tax payer around £1 million. Well I suppose it was worth it to help save the planet.
The Royal Society estimate that SAF will take up half the farmland in the UK. So little crops to eat and starvation imminent.
No need for us to worry as the rush to decarbonise at every opportunity will soon take atmospheric levels of C02 under 150p.p.m.,
causing plants and humans to drop like flies. Well I suppose it was worth it to help save the planet.
The morons in government are spending £125m of taxpayers money on the SAF bullshit. More of our money down the drain, just like on CCS etc.
OECD says scrap Triple Lock to pay for Net Zero. Daily Telegraph
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/11/29/jeremy-hunt-scrap-triple-lock-reach-net-zero-oecd/
Doesn’t impress the commenters
Finally. A superstition Indians reject as suicidal hogwash!
Doesn’t this undermine the whole argument that green energy is cheap and reliable? If green, renewable energy was reliable and cheap why would a country like India not be ensuring 100% of its new energy infrastructure was renewable
Political activists and pseudo-economists are always agonizing about being world leaders in doing things. Enoch Powell consistently made a sensible comment about technology and economic advance: “Why rush to be the first nation to do anything? Wait a little; and either the front runner will sustain a disaster or, if it goes well for him, you will have the chance, soon enough, to do the same thing better and cheaper.” Well, we in the West are the front runner in fighting CAGW, and India knows now that it is going to be a disaster for us. Since their long term aim is to be the number one power in the world they are,
I am sure, merely amused.
There must be a mistake here. Everybody knows that solar power is the cheapest electricity, and it is getting cheaper and cheaper by the month.
So why are the Indians persisting with this expensive option of coal power ?
Yet the S&P person does not even mention solar (or wind) in his list ?!
This is indeed strange when we’re told that renewables in the UK are 9 times cheaper than hydocarbons.
any day now my energy bill is going to be halved …ha ha ha
As at 4pm 1st Dec, our wind energy generation was at 2.8%, could someone please tell the UN COP28 that wind turbines don’t work when there’s no wind
They do, but when the wind stops, they close their eyes and wish very hard, and when it eventually does blow again, say “there you go, see!”.
I stand corrected