- Monday, February 24, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
EVER since Indian prime minister Narendra Modi revealed his ambitious commitment to climate by announcing that India will achieve a net-zero emissions target by 2070, there has been no dearth of discussion on the topic.
While experts have hailed Modi over his announcement made at the World Leaders’ Summit at Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, India’s state-run energy body Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HCPL) has said the aim will not affect the peak oil demand forecast for the world’s third-biggest oil importer and consumer, Reuters reported.
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Besides claiming that India’s net-zero carbon emissions will be achieved in 2070, Modi also said that by 2030, the share of renewables in India’s energy mix would go up from 38 per cent to 50 per cent and the projected emissions would be slashed by a billion tonnes.
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“Based on the energy requirement of the country, we need to move towards the different forms of energy and we need different forms of energy to cater to increasing needs of the country,” MK Surana, the chairman of HCPL, said in a news conference.
“And based on the current assessment, it is expected that the peak oil demand may not be before 2040,” he added.
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India imports a whopping 85 per cent of its oil needs and is considered a key driver for the growth of oil demand globally. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its World Energy Outlook 2021 that India’s demand for oil could rise to 9.2 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2050 and to 7.2 million bpd in 2030 from about 4.8 million bpd in 2019, Reuters cited.
India is ramping up the use of natural gas, bio fuels, ethanol mixing with gasoline and the use of green hydrogen, among others, to reduce its carbon emission, the report added.
According to Surana, India would require both conventional fuels and new energy sources to meet the rising demand for a smooth transition to cleaner energy.
He also hoped that India’s demand for diesel would continue to stay above its pre-Covid level on rising industrial activity, growing demand from the farm sector, easing of the Covid-induced restrictions and increased vaccination which has reduced fears of a third wave of the pandemic.
