India Hits 50% Non-Fossil Power Milestone Five Years Ahead of Paris Agreement's 2030 Target

India has achieved 50% of its installed electricity capacity from non-fossil fuel sources -- five years ahead of its 2030 target under the Paris Agreement, signalling accelerating momentum in the country's clean energy transition. From a report: The announcement comes as India's renewable power output rose at its fastest pace since 2022 in the first half of 2025, while coal-fired generation declined nearly 3%. Fossil fuels still accounted for over two-thirds of the increase in power generation last year. India plans to expand coal-fired capacity by 80 GW by 2032 to meet rising demand.

It's cheaper

[rsilvergun]

Even if you don't account for the externalized costs of fossil fuels wind and solar are cheaper so long as you've got land and India has that.

The only reason to keep using fossil fuels is the prop up fossil fuel companies and fossil fuel dependent countries like Saudi Arabia.

We all know that but those companies spend a lot of money buying our elections. Mostly with propaganda to trick us into voting for people who are currently crashing our economy and getting ready to lay us all off

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[AmiMoJo]

It's interesting that India is a democracy and has managed to do this 5 years ahead of their goal. Their goal wasn't as aggressive as China's, but still.

It's a good sign because it proves that democracies can do this kind of thing. Of course for India it's been a massive benefit. Not just cleaner air, but lots of jobs in manufacturing and installation. It has helped develop their energy grid too, improving it and getting power to under-served areas. They have new micro and mini grids too.

It's a shame so man

It's not just a democracies can do this

[rsilvergun]

Democracies are better at everything. Dictatorships always just turn into corruption.

The Chinese dictatorship has survived because it became the world's factory. And because it had a huge surplus rural population it could churn through. None of that is sustainable and the cracks are showing and they are working on moving to a wartime economy similar to how America did in order to maintain their economy without actually implementing socialism.

Empires never last because corruption sets in and they im

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[newbie_fantod]

The Chinese Empire has been going strong for six millennia, when do you expect the rot to start setting in? BTW, the kind of corruption being exhibited by the current American President is punished by execution in the PRC.

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[mamba-mamba]

You mean solar plus batteries, right? You can't do a cost comparison between pure solar (without storage) and fossil fuels. Since pure solar can't produce power when the sun is not shining. The batteries drive up the cost quite a bit.

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[DevsVult]

Yes, however the cost of solar, batteries and smart grid infrastructure are declining exponentially, so you have to keep re-doing the comparison every so often. One could start with just solar, which in India might be valuable on its own to run an air conditioner during the hottest part of the day. Then add a little battery so you can charge your cell phone all night. Then a few years later get a bigger battery and run a refrigerator all night, and so on.

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[MacMann]

The only reason to keep using fossil fuels is the prop up fossil fuel companies and fossil fuel dependent countries like Saudi Arabia.

That's the only reason? Not to keep the lights on when the sun doesn't blow and the wind doesn't shine?

Metrics like LCOE, levelized cost of energy/electricity, make certain assumptions when making their calculations. One common assumption for wind and solar is that there's an existing backup somewhere on the grid. It's pretty safe to make that assumption if half of your electricity comes from fossil fuels still, and there's ample reserves in that given that for large portions of the year there could be i

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[OrangeTide]

Fossil fuels are such a pain to deal with geopolitically as well. Nobody is likely to invade in order to steal my sunlight. You almost need a huge standing army to have any influence on fossil fuel prices.

We all know that but those companies spend a lot of money buying our elections. Mostly with propaganda to trick us into voting for people who are currently crashing our economy and getting ready to lay us all off

Pretty much every organization that accumulates more power than the people will take control. It's almost impossible to peacefully hold onto a democracy for any length of time.

Well done!

[greytree]

Sensible humans will save human civilization, despite the many stupid humans who aren't smart enough to care, or who benefit (in the short term) from fighting against what is very obviously right.

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[Tokolosh]

Remind me how much emissions have declined in India, and how much the climate has cooled?

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[Errol backfiring]

As the effect of CO2 lasts for times in the order of thousands of years, the climate won't cool. At least not in your lifetime. It can only heat up slower.

here you go

[GillBates0]

https://www.perplexity.ai/sear... [perplexity.ai]

describe in extreme detail failed USA recycle policies and plastic overuse. meanwhile India has successfully banned single use plastics for years now. e
g. McDonalds there and malls use better utensils.

## Americaâ(TM)s Failed Recycling Policies and Plastic Overuse

### The Scale of Plastic Overuse in the USA compare to worls most populous democracy India

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[Tokolosh]

Just put the plastic in a properly-managed landfill and be done with it. Recycling, like bio-fuels and other performative greenwashing, does not help the environment.

I bet you see a lot more plastic waste blowing around in India than the USA. Funny, that...

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[ChunderDownunder]

Burying 'chemicals' is generally a bad idea. You contaminate your water sources over time.

There have been proposals to burn waste, i.e. turning petro-chemical plastics back into their constituent petro state as fuel. Of course, burning shit sounds like a toxic mess for anyone standing down-wind of the chimney.

For that to happen, governments regulate away production of 'bad' plastics in the first place ensuring a cleaner burn. And, over time, you switch away from petro sources to more vegan-friendly plastics

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[smooth wombat]

Sensible humans? The ones in India? The most populous nation on the planet? The one where air pollutants are so thick in major cities it looks like fog? Where farmers openly burn their fields [reuters.com] to make way for next year's crops contributing to the air pollution? The country which the article states will increase its use of coal-fired power plants? Those sensible humans?

NOOOOO

[thegarbz]

Only last week I complained that I can't complain about China anymore, now India is doing something? WTF. Who else can I complain about to justify not doing anything myself? Help me out here. Which one of your roll coal who I can point to in order to justify keeping the AC turned on when I'm not at home?