India needs to shift from coal to other sources of energy: IEA

NEW DELHI - India will need investment of $4.5 trillion in the energy sector to cut carbon emissions as part of a global initiative to reduce global warming by 2050, the International Energy Agency Executive Director, Nobuo Tanaka, said here Friday.

The United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has said global emissions of carbon dioxide have to come down by 50 percent to limit the increase in average temperate to between 2 to 2.4 degrees centigrade.

In contrast to the US and China, India’s per capita emission is low and it would increase by 10 percent by 2050. But if the IPCC requirements were to be met, India would have to shift from coal-based economy to other sources like wind, solar, hydro and nuclear power.

And this would require massive investments, said Tanaka, launching the IEA’s Energy Technology Perspectives 2010 here.

“India would need an investment of $4.5 trillion from here till 2050,” Tanaka said, talking about this best case scenario, which IEA has termed as “Blue map scenario”.

He said more than half of the amount- $2.8 trillion- would have to be invested in the transportation sector, while another $1.2 trillion would be in the power sector.

India, however, would accrue fuel savings “amounting to $8 billion” from having a diverse and sustainable energy basket by then.

The IEA calculates that the world would need an investment of $316 trillion by 2050 to meet the target of halving emissions by 2050.