Indian Railways Aids India’s NDC: Set Goals for Net Zero Emissions by 2030

This move could aid India in achieving it's goal of cutting carbon emissions by 33% in the same time span.

Indian Railways plans to go net zero by 2030. 

(Photo Courtesy: iStock Images)

The Indian Railways have announced their goal of becoming a net zero carbon emitter by 2030.

If successful, this move could aid India in achieving it's goal of cutting carbon emissions by 33percent in the same time span.

Indian Railways Set Go Green Goals in 2020

The Indian Railways are the fourth largest railway network in the world. The railway system intends to achieve their net zero goals via a two- pronged approach. This would be done by shifting the entirety of their trains to those powered by electricity and also sourcing the energy to power the railways from renewable sources.

While most corporations have resorted to using carbon offsets to achieve their climate actions goals, the railways are relying entirely on reducing their carbon emissions exponentially.

The goal of the Indian Railways to go green was announced in 2020 and has since been reiterated on multiple occasions, the most recent being 7 October 2022, where it was announced that this plan would take 'an integrated approach'.

This approach would increase the movement of freight by railways to 45percent by 2030, but it will also aid the Indian Railways network in building its capacity for renewable energy.

The Indian Railways intend to go completely electric by December 2023. This plan to phase out the use of diesel began in 2014, and by 2021 the annual diesel consumption dropped to 1,092 million litres from 3,066 million litres in 2019.

The total energy requirement of the railways is set to increase to 8.2 GW by 2030. Of this, a small portion is expected to be consumed from non-renewable energy sources because of power purchase agreements with coal plants.

To achieve this, the Indian Railways will need to install renewable energy capacity of at least 30 GW by 2030 due to the fact that they can not entirely depend on solar and wind energy.

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