The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) International Energy Outlook (IEO) for 2019, released on September 24, predicts that India will lead global growth in industrial consumption of coal by 2050, driven largely by growth in the country’s steel and cement sectors.
According to the report, India will show the largest increase in industrial energy consumption in the world, with 70 per cent of new energy coming from renewable energy. However, coal-fired generation is still expected to double, though its share in India’s electricity production will decline from 73 per cent in 2018 to 38 per cent in 2050.
In the IEO’s reference case, India will increase its annual coal production by 27 per cent each year, from 850 millions short tons in 2018 to two billion short tons by 2050. Coal consumption, meanwhile, will grow at 3.1 per cent per year on average, from 1.1 billion short tons (17 quadrillion Btu) in 2018 to 2.9 billion short tons (46 quadrillion Btu) in 2050.
By this forecast, India will become the world’s largest importer of coal by 2050. While China is expected to shift from coal to natural gas, the decline in its CO2 emissions will be offset by India’s corresponding increase in coal-related emissions. China, however, will continue to be the largest polluter from coal-based sources.
Bright future for renewable energy
Altogether, renewable energy sources like solar and wind are expected to outpace coal and occupy the largest share of energy consumption by 2050.
Global CO2 emissions from energy are estimated to grow at an average rate of 0.6 per cent per year between 2018 and 2050. Emissions from OECD countries are expected to decline by 0.2 per cent annually while those from non-OECD nations will increase by about one per cent—though this increase will be slower than the related growth in energy consumption of 1.6 per cent.
India’s energy demand will grow at an average annual rate of 4.6 per cent, with most of the demand coming from industrial consumers, more than half of which are from the energy-intensive manufacturing sectors like chemicals, food, iron and steel, non-ferrous metals, non-metallic minerals, paper and refining. China and India will lead the growth in industrial energy consumption.
In terms of residential energy use, per capita consumption in India "will remain lower than that of Europe, Eurasia, China, Middle East, Russia and non-OECD countries" with India’s residential use per person in 2050 expected to be "only about 24 per cent of that in the United States".
Overall, non-OECD countries will lead the growth in energy demand, as OECD economies are projected to raise their energy consumption by just one per cent annually.
Strong economic growth in non-OECD nations is expected to drive the growth in demand for energy. While OECD demand will grow by 15 per cent, non-OECD demand is estimated to grow by nearly 70 cent, with Asia accounting for the bulk of the increase.
The report, presented every year, makes modelled projections of global energy markets with the aim of creating “a baseline for estimating the effects of policy or technology changes.” IEO reports in the past have been criticised for underestimated the growth trajectory of renewable energy.
Earlier, the BP Energy Outlook 2019 predicted that India’s share of global primary energy demand would double to 11 per cent by 2040, with 42 per cent of new energy demand met rhough coal, resulting in CO2 emissions roughly doubling by 2040.
The independent Climate Action Tracker, which measures countries progress in limiting their emissions so as to keep global warming under certain thresholds, currently states that India is on course to achieve its ‘2°C compatible’ Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) target under the Paris Agreement. For India to achieve the more ambitious goal of a 1.5 °C target, it must abandon plans to build more coal-fired power plants.