Carbon Emissions in India fell for the First Time in last 40 Years

As per the recent study conducted in the fiscal year ending March, carbon emissions are likely to drop by 1.4 percent. The decline in the emission is due to the slowing demand for coal and oil over the past 12 months. Due to the lockdown, the emissions reduced further and fell 15 percent in March and 30 percent in April.

The decline in carbon emissions reflects the back waves affecting the Indian market as of early 2019, and increasing renewable energy generation. But the analysis of official Indian data across the nation’s complete 2019-20 fiscal year shows the fall has steepened in March, due to measures taken to contain the coronavirus pandemic. The country’s CO2 emissions fell by approximated 15% during the month of March and are likely to have fallen 30% in April.

Due to lock-downs and restrictions in place, we have seen a steep fall in the consumption of electricity and crude oil.

The decline in Coal Power Generation

The data shows that the Coronavirus and resultant lock-down restrictions have cut India’s electricity demand, mostly at the expense of coal. Coal-fired power generation fell 15% in March and more than 30% in the month of April. This is based on daily data from the Indian national grid. In contrast, renewable energy (RE) generation increased by 6.4% in March.

The Declined Oil Consumption

As we seen in case of electricity, the oil consumption has been declining since early 2019. The lockdown restrictions has compounded the slowness and thus resulted as a dramatically less oil consumption. During the nation-wide lockdown, oil consumption fell 18% on year in March 2020 mainly due to limited transportation.

Carbon emissions declined 30% in April 2020

The carbonbrief.org used multiple indicators in relation with coal, oil and gas consumption, to estimate that Carbon emissions have been fallen by 30m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2, 1.4%) in the fiscal year ending March. This decline is the first-ever annual decline in the last 40 years.

As the studies and data show, the current crisis has is having a notable positive impact on our CO2 emissions, at least in the short term. This is our responsibility now to keep the emissions low and act sincerely to further lower down carbon emission moving forward as well.

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