Carbon Dioxide/ GHGs and Climate Chaos: The latest rounds of severe heat waves, floods and storms brought to focus the severity of the looming climate crisis and the urgency of a wide variety of necessary climate actions. It is also well established that the primary driver of the global climate crisis is the massive amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted by human (anthropogenic) activities – mostly by the richer societies and countries, and the build-up of these GHGs in the atmosphere. In the pre-industrial period, generally taken to be the average of AD 1850-1900 (though the so-called Industrial Revolution started earlier, around 1760-1800), the average concentration of the primary GHG, Carbon Dioxide CO2, was about 279 ppmv (parts per million by volume). This has now crossed an average value of 422 ppmv, with present (May 2024) values reaching 427 ppmv. (The seasonal variation in CO2 concentration is due to the (northern) summer time vegetation growth across the northern hemisphere and (northern) winter time reduction in vegetative cover in N-hemisphere.).
By Oeneis – Own work. Data from Dr. Pieter Tans, NOAA/ESRL and Dr. Ralph Keeling, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, CC BY-SA 4.0. 
Last CO2 Earth update: 2:35:03 AM on Jun. 7, 2024, Hawaii local time (UTC -10), Data source: NOAA GML (Mauna Loa Observatory)
Units: parts per million (ppm) (co2.earth/daily-co2)
It has been estimated that from the industrial revolution onwards, over two-thirds of the total CO2 has been emitted due to the burning of three fossil fuels, namely coal, oil and gas, with about 30% contribution coming from deforestation. The atmosphere has taken up, or was the sink, for over 42% of this cumulative emission of CO2, from 1850 till date, leading to a 50% increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Drastic Actions needed but lacking: As per the (somewhat conservative) IPCC report “Assessment report cycle 6: Mitigation of Climate Change”, if the first red line of 1.5C temperature rise is to be avoided, the world has to reach maximum or peak emissions latest by 2025 and then very sharply reduce its CO2-equivalent emissions (emissions of all GHGs in terms of their potential to warm the Earth) by 45% by the year 2030. As anyone can understand, where fossil fuel burning contributes to over 66% of the total emissions, if the world has to reach these targets, fossil fuel extraction and use need to be drastically cut down and eliminated over a short period of time.
Unfortunately, instead of reducing our CO2 emissions and fossil fuel consumption, emissions are still rising, as per data from the end of 2023. According to the UN Environment Programme, (UNEP) latest Emissions Gap Report 2023
Global GHG emissions set a new record of 57.4 Gt CO2e in 2022.
“Global GHG emissions increased by 1.2 per cent from 2021 to 2022 to reach a new record of 57.4 gigatons (billion tons) of CO2 equivalent (GtCO2e). All sectors apart from transport have fully rebounded from the drop in emissions induced by the COVID-19 pandemic and now exceed 2019 levels. CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes were the main contributors to the overall increase, accounting for about two-thirds of current GHG emissions. Emissions of methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and fluorinated gases (F-gases), which have higher global warming potentials and account for about one-quarter of current GHG emissions, are increasing rapidly: in 2022, F-gas emissions grew by 5.5 per cent, followed by CH4 at 1.8 per cent and N2O at 0.9 per cent.
Based on early projections, global net land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) CO2 emissions remained steady in 2022. LULUCF CO2 emissions and removals continue to have the largest uncertainties of all gases considered, both in terms of their absolute amounts and trends.”
India’s Climate Pledges: As these alarm bells ring louder and louder, most countries were compelled to submit some kind of climate action plan to the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change UNFCCC, in the Paris Agreement reached in December 2015. As part of its own action plan, submitted as its Nationally Determined Contribution or NDC, the Indian government pledged three main actions, and upgraded two of these later on –
- That 50% of India’s installed electricity capacity by 2030, will be from Non-Fossil sources. (Note – a. the GoI re-categorised hydroelectric power as renewable a few years back, b. in the case of ‘non-fossil’ sources, renewable as well as Nuclear power is counted in.).
- That Indian economy will reduce its emissions intensity by 45% from the 2005 baseline, by the year 2030. Emissions intensity is the amount of CO2 equivalent emission per a fixed amount of Economic output or GDP.
- India’s forests and tree cover will be increased to the extent that an additional 2.5 to 3.0 gigatons (250 to 300 crore tons) of CO2 is sequestered in the period 2016-2030.
Later on, some GoI announcements gave a figure of 500 GW of installed Non-fossil sources by 2030 (please note, this 50% is of the electricity capacity, not total primary energy, which is a much bigger requirement). Along with the 50% non-fossil capacity pledge, it can be assumed that the GoI is targeting an installed electricity capacity of around 1000 GW, from the present (May 2024) installed capacity of 417.688 GW. This will mean a more than doubling of installed capacity, with just 6.5 years to go!
Out of this, the total non-fossil capacity now is 179.322GW, which forms 43% of the current total installed capacity. Nuclear contributes a tiny amount of 6780 MW or 1.6% of the current installed capacity. Both the lead time and construction time of nuclear power plants being large (in India, nuclear power plants take at least 10 years to build), one cannot expect any significant contribution from nuclear, to this goal of non-fossil electricity by 2030. So we will have to depend on Solar photovoltaic and wind electricity capacity additions mainly. And given the constraints of nuclear (fission) power sources (not to think of its massive radiation load and damages and very long-term radiation risk of spent fuels), most of this 500 GW (500,000 MW) capacity will have to be from solar PV and wind energy.
Large and mega solar and wind energy ‘parks’ – high on land grab: As it is well known, both solar and wind energy, the mainstays of the renewable energy push, are rather dilute forms of energy, and require substantial amounts of land to install big capacities. A modern high efficiency Mono PERC solar panel gives 20-22% efficiency and requires a little over 3 acres of land per MW on installed capacity. A MW-scale wind turbine also requires about 1 acre of land and more land is required if access roads etc are included. The 20-22% efficiency is a drastic improvement over the 11-13% efficiency commonly available just a decade back, and sharply reduces the land required.
In its pursuit of both these non-fossil and renewable energy targets, the GoI, its nodal agencies (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, the Renewable Energy Development Agencies, the Public sector RE companies and also the large private sector are mostly building large and mega Solar PV power plants. This is leading to often forcible or “on-compulsion” land acquisition at low prices from villagers/farmers. Also, very large areas of common lands like pastures etc are being given over to these solar and wind energy companies.
The plans/targets of the GoI can be seen on its ministry website as shown below:
Additional initiatives to achieve 50% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030.
Govt. of India has set a target for establishing 50% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030. In this regard, the following additional initiatives have been taken toward integration of Renewable power in the grid:
a. Transmission schemes for integration of 66.5GW renewable generation in states like Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have been planned and are under various stages of implementation.
b. About 55.08 GW of renewable potential has been identified in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh for which planning of transmission system has been carried out and the implementation of the same would be taken up.
c. About 33.35 GW of renewable generations can be integrated into the ISTS grid through margins at various existing/under-construction ISTS S/s.
d. For the remaining capacity addition, SECI has preliminarily identified 181.5GW potential Renewable Energy Zones in 8 states viz. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Offshore wind at Gujarat & Tamil Nadu with various Hybrid & Solar locations planned with Storage (BESS of 43.6GW). In this regard, a report for transmission system for integration of over 500GW of nonfossil fuel-based generation capacity by 2030 has been prepared by Central Electricity Authority.
About 51,000 ckm of transmission lines and 4,33,500 MVA of transformation capacity is expected to be added to the ISTS network at an estimated cost of about ₹ 2,44,000Cr. These transmission schemes include various high-capacity 765kV and 400kV EHVAC transmission lines and ±800kV & ±350kV HVDC lines
Inadequate pace of Renewable power capacity addition: Thus, from the present day (May end 2024) installed non-fossil capacity of about 180 GW, the capacity has to go up to 500 GW by 2030 (a near impossible deadline), adding some 320 GW in just over 6 years. And we can safely assume that at least 300 GW of this has to come from solar and Wind energy, as even big hydropower plants take over a decade to build and face huge public resistance due to their large-scale displacement and damage to local land and ecology. That requirement means that India has to add almost 50 GW every year – in both public and private sectors combined. However, the best achievement of late has been the financial year 23-24, in which India increased its RE electricity capacity by 18.48 GW, marking a growth of over 21 percent compared to the previous year’s 15.27 GW, as reported by the MNRE.
The land Question: We can safely assume that out of this 300 GW of Renewable source electricity, Solar (the fastest growing now) will have to contribute 200 GW, with another 100 GW coming from Wind energy projects. In this scenario, the minimum approximate land requirement for these two will come to around 10,00,000 acres (200,000 MW solar X 4 acres/MW considering shading-avoidance, maintenance passage and other systems) + (100,000 MW wind X 2 acres/MW), or 400,000 hectares. Adding land requirement for supporting infrastructure, this can be assumed to be a maximum of about 1.2 million (12,00,000) acres or about 480,000 hectares.
“In India, about 51.09% of the land is under cultivation, 21.81% under forest and 3.92% under pasture. Built up areas and uncultivated land occupy about 12.34% (Kundra, 1999). About 5.17% of the total land is uncultivated waste, which can be converted into agricultural land. The other types of land comprise up 4.67%.”
Land use map of India: National Institute of Hydrology
Considering the total non-agricultural land available, this is not an unattainable or unusually large figure, but if large land parcels are taken in single locations, this will have (as is already happening) adverse impacts on both local agrarian economies and livelihoods. India has approximately 176 million hectares of agricultural land out of a total land mass of over 328 million hectares. Thus, about 0.3% of India’s land is sufficient for the installation of additional RE target by 2030. At present, the GoI is emphasising large and mega solar and wind energy parks as the primary means, which needs to be changed.
There are over 660,000 villages in India, and our rural economy is in distress due to very small land holdings, low productivity and low incomes from agriculture. If our renewable electricity program focuses on distributing the total capacity among villages where good /adequate sunshine and /or wind velocities are available and empowers the panchayats to implement this distributed RE programme with technical and financial help, this can achieve both our RE targets and rejuvenate the rural economies. Even if only 1 MW of the newly installed renewable energy capacity is distributed to each village, the total additional power capacity can exceed 650,000 MW. The additional land will be owned and operated by the village panchayats, thus reducing the likelihood of land conflicts. This will also give a major boost to village economies, by not only giving free or low-cost electricity to every household for 25-30 years but also opening up and increasing many new income-generating opportunities (in conjunction with enabling policies). And it’s now possible to put land to dual use, when agricultural land in very sunny areas can host raised Solar PV panels, while underneath, vegetable and other crops can be grown. And when demand increases, each village (on average) can build upon its 1 MW base power capacity.
Soumya Dutta, works with MAUSAM (Movement for Advancing Understanding on Sustainability And Mutuality), and SAPACC (South Asian Peoples’ Action on Climate Crisis) (soumyadutta.delhi@gmail.com)
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