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

India is heavily reliant on fossil fuels especially for coal to fulfil its energy demands which are expected to grow exponentially and make substantial pressure on unsustainable resources. Such resources are the major contributor to the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As per the Government of India Energy Statistics 2019 report, the energy consumption was maximum in coal and lignite form in petajoules, accounting for about 44.1% of the overall demand in 2017–2018 followed by crude oil (34.32%), whereas energy from other renewable sources was third (13.24%). Also, it is reported that 68.7% of GHG emissions in India comes from the energy sector. Therefore, renewable energy (RE) sources are required which have the massive capacity of cutting carbon emissions and mitigating climate change. India has a tremendous capacity to tap clean energy that will provide energy security to the nation, independent to meet its energy demands, and simultaneously reducing GHG emission. The total potential to generate renewable power in the country as on March 2018 was estimated to be 1 096 081 MW which includes 68.33% of solar power capacity (748 990 MW), 27.58% of wind power capacity (302 251 MW) at 100 m hub height, 1.80% of small hydropower capacity (9749 MW), 1.60% of biomass power (17 536 MW) and 0.46% from bagasse-based cogeneration (5000 MW). Therefore, this chapter describes India's energy sector and then discusses the extensive policy framework, agreements and commitments by India such as National Action Plan on Climate Change (2008), Copenhagen Accord (2009), Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (2015), and in the end, various financial instruments have been discussed that are used to promote RE in India such as Coal tax, RE certification and perform achieve and trade (PAT).