India Saw A 29% Surge in Per Capita Coal Emissions In The Past 7 Years: Report

India saw a 29 per cent surge in per capita coal emissions over the last seven years, according to a report titled G20 Per Capita Coal Power Emissions 2023 released on September 5, by Ember, a global energy think tank.

The rapid demand in growth for electricity has been cited as the reason for the rise in India’s coal-fired generation in this period.

G20 or The Group of Twenty is a forum of 19 countries and the European Union for international economic cooperation. The G20 countries contain two-thirds of the global population. Accounting for 85 per cent of the global GDP and contributing to 80 per cent of the world's power sector emissions, the G20 plays a crucial role to lead clean energy transition.

India holds the presidency of the G20 from 1 December, 2022 to November 30, 2023.

Of the 20 of these countries, 12 saw a per capita decline in coal emissions since 2015. These included Australia, South Korea, South Africa, the US, Germany, Canada, the UK, Brazil, Mexico, France, Italy and Argentina. However, the report advocated that this was not enough to reduce global coal power emissions.

In fact, the G20 per capita coal emissions increased from 1.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2015 to 1.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2022, which is about nine per cent.

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Despite a reduced per capita coal emissions by 26 per cent and 10 per cent respectively — Australia and South Korea are on average the G20’s top two coal polluters. They each emit over three times the global average and more than twice the G20 average, surpassing even China, the US, and Japan.

Commenting on the findings, Dave Jones, Global Insights Lead in Ember said that “China and India are often blamed as the world’s big coal power polluters. But when you take population into account, South Korea and Australia were the worst polluters still in 2022. As mature economies, they should be scaling up renewable electricity ambitiously and confidently enough to enable coal to be phased out by 2030.”

Indonesia and Turkey, two other G20 countries also recorded a rise in coal power emissions per capita over the last seven years, although they are still below the world average.

Indonesia witnessed the highest percentage rise with per capita coal power emissions surging by 56 per cent between 2015 and 2022. Turkey was just slightly behind with an increase of 41 per cent in emissions per capita.

In China, per capita coal power emissions rose by 30 per cent which were only below Australia and South Korea. Russia's per capita emissions also grew by 20 per cent in the last seven years; Japan’s emissions per capita inched up by 2 per cent.

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The United Kingdom saw the most significant decline in coal power emissions per capita in the last seven years, dropping by 93 per cent, followed by France at minus 63 per cent, Italy at minus 50 per cent and Brazil at minus 42 per cent. In both France and Brazil, the decline resulted from fossil generation being replaced by cleaner sources.

The report said that the need of the hour for the G20 countries was to set and commit to higher renewable targets. The countries also had to prioritise the tripling of global renewable capacity by 2030, and plan for a coal power phase-down by enabling policies, financial mechanisms and global partnerships.

“India, as the host of the G20 summit, has the opportunity to assume climate leadership in the G20 and hold the bloc accountable. India's plans to ramp up renewable energy seem to align well with the COP28 president's call for tripling renewables by 2030. India's early backing to this call can not only influence the G20 into action but also ensure that the developed countries bring their per capita emissions down,” said Aditya Lolla, Asia Programme Lead, Ember.