Carbon Emissions from Indian Power Sector- A Roadmap towards Environmental Sustainability

Energy poverty was once considered as the major bottleneck for development of an economy. But now it is not scarcity which is an issue, but affluence as rightly said by Galbraith. According to him as a society becomes affluent, the problems like pollution, environmental degradation, global warming etc. takes place. Hence now the emphasis should not be on “how to overcome the problem of scarcity” but on “how to reduce the adverse effects on environment caused due to growth and development”. Therefore, it is being accepted worldwide that environmental sustainability is threatened by affluence and not by scarcity. Of all the requirements of humans today, electricity occupies a special importance, and this is the reason that the consumption of electricity is considered as an effective parameter of growth and development. The more is the consumption of power the more would be the growth taking place in the economy. In the past few decades almost all the economies whether developed, developing or underdeveloped have been working hard towards achieving self-sufficiency in power. Even in India the consumption of power has increased manifold i.e. from 734KWh in 2008-09 to 1075 KWh in 2015-16 i.e. 46% increase in 8 years (CEA). The positive outcome of this effort is the improvement in the quality of human population in the past few decades but the fact about this rise in consumption of power is it has resulted in various environmental issues in India as even today more than 70% of power needs is met from fossil fuels. The present article presents the scenario of Indian power sector since independence in section I. Relationship between CO 2 emissions, Power sector and growth using Environment Kuznets Curve (EKC) is discussed in section II and some strategic measure to take the economy from economic development to environmental sustainability is given based on findings in the final section of the article.