Energy

9Sustainable Energy Policies of India to Address Air Pollution and Climate Change

Prem Lata Meena¹, Vinay², and Anirudh Sehrawat²

¹ Department of Polymer Science, Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences, University of Delhi, Dwarka, New Delhi, India

² University School of Environment Management, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Dwarka, New Delhi, India

9.1 Introduction

The power sector of India is one of the most diversified sectors in the world (Kumar et al. 2014) which includes different sources ranging from different conventional sources to non‐conventional sources (Prasanthrajan and Keerthika 2020). But in India, about 75% of energy still comes from burning fossil fuels making this sector a world's dirtiest electricity system (CarbonBrief analysis 2019). This sector emits half of the CO₂ in India. The electricity demand is increasing exponentially, and it is also further expected to grow in the years ahead. Therefore, there is a requirement of massive addition to the installed generating capacity to satisfy the increasing energy demand of the country for electricity.

Climate change is changing in long‐term weather patterns which is directly or indirectly attributed to anthropogenic activities that alter the global atmospheric composition. This leads to change in temperature, precipitation, sea level and, the severity and frequency of extreme events such as heat strokes, drought, flood, hurricane, and storms, etc. These changes will be likely to affect energy ...