March 26, 2026
India's New Climate Targets for 2035
Good news: India is already on track to meet most of them. Not so good news: They may not be enough.
What's happening?
- India just announced its climate commitments for 2031-2035. The key points are:
- Achieve 60% of power capacity from clean energy: We are currently at 50% power capacity from renewables (solar, wind, hydro) and we want to take that up to 60% by 2035.
- Cut emissions intensity by 47% (v/s 2005 baseline). Emission intensity is the amount of emissions per unit of GDP. Cutting that essentially means we want to achieve the same production but by using lesser energy.
- Expand forest and tree cover, which will serve as major carbon sinks.
- Sounds ambitious? Well, India already hit its previous targets years early. For e.g. we hit our 2030 targets 5 years ahead of schedule and are expected to hit the 60% clean energy capacity target by 2035.
Why should you care?
- These targets will set mandates that will translate to action on ground — movement towards cleaner energy, electrification, protection of green spaces.
- While they sound ambitious, they are quite modest. And according to some experts, "insufficient."
- Setting easy targets means we lose another decade. The heat waves, floods, and water shortages hitting India right now need bolder action, not targets we've already met.