India's electricity demand nearly quadrupled between 2000 and 2020, and because coal supplied about 76 percent of it, urban air pollution and related deaths rose sharply, according to a study in Nature Cities led by Basudev Swain of the University of Oxford.

Urban aerosol loading more than doubled, and estimated urban deaths attributable to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) rose from about 0.67 million in 2000 to 0.87 million in 2020, a jump of about 30 percent, even as cleaner cooking cut household pollution. Sulphate from coal became the largest contributor to urban aerosols, rising from 35.5 to 46.4 percent. India had 71 coal plants before 2000 and 253 by 2024, concentrated in the Indo-Gangetic Plain.

The findings matter as demand keeps growing: the IEA expects India to add more than 570 TWh of annual consumption between 2026 and 2030, though it also expects wind and solar to rise from 14 to 24 percent of generation by 2030. India's coal-fired generation fell about 3 percent in 2025, partly thanks to a strong monsoon.

Photo: Ramilarora / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Source: Down To Earth