Greenwashing the climate: Our favourite self-deception

India is celebrating what is being described as a climate milestone.

- ACHARYA PRASHANT

Headlines proudly declare that half of the nation's installed electricity capacity now comes from non-fossil sources such as solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear. This target was meant for 2030; it is being claimed as achieved in 2025, five years early.

The achievement has naturally been welcomed as a sign of progress. At a time when heatwaves and floods are becoming more frequent, such news feels reassuring, almost like a promise of relief. Yet the question lingers: how much has really changed on the ground? INSTALLED CAPACITY IS NOT THE SAME AS REALITY The first point to note is that installed capacity reflects potential, not actual output. It tells us what plants could produce at full tilt, not what they currently generate. And what India currently generates still comes mostly from coal.

Coal provides close to 72 percent of the country's electricity. Solar and wind together reach about 12 to 13 percent, hydro around 10 percent, and nuclear less than 3. Installed capacity may suggest one picture, but the reality of day-to-day generation still looks very different.

So while the milestone represents progress in capacity building, it does not yet mean India has become a renewable energy nation.

THE PROBLEM WITH "NON-FOSSIL" There is also comfort in the phrase non-fossil. It sounds green, but the category includes not just solar and wind, but also nuclear power and large hydro projects.

Hydro dams have displaced millions of villagers and drowned entire forests. Their reservoirs emit methane, a greenhouse gas with nearly twenty times the warming potential of carbon dioxide.

This makes it worth asking whether all non-fossil energy should automatically be called clean, or whether the label sometimes hides more than it reveals.

EMISSIONS KEEP RISING If the rise of non-fossil capacity were a sign of decisive progress, India's emissions should have been declining.