KARACHI: Pakistan’s power sector emissions have surged by 17 percent in the last two years, a prominent study shows, as the planning ministry said on Thursday it would shift to clean energy by 2030.
Rising global electricity demand has outpaced growth in clean electricity, leading to an increase in coal power use, with emissions now 5 percent above pre-pandemic levels, London-based climate and energy think tank Ember said in the report released earlier this week.
In Pakistan, the report said, power sector emissions had surged by 17 percent after the country started switching from gas to coal power generation in the last two years.
Pakistan's energy mix is currently dominated by fossil fuels but the government announced last year that 60 percent of its overall mix of electricity will come from clean sources by 2030. On Thursday, it approved the Indicative Generation Capacity Expansion Plan (IGCEP) 2021-30, with the aim of shifting from fossil fuels to clean energy.
“Under the approved IGCEP the generation mix of 2022 which is dominated by fossil fuel will shift to clean energy (hydel, Solar, Wind, Nuclear) by the year 2030," the planning ministry said in a statement.
Pakistan reported an all-time high level of power generation during July 2021 which was up by 6.6 percent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis to 21,076 megawatts (MW), with coal emerging as a major source of power.
"Pakistan’s demand increased in the first half of 2021 to 8% over pre-pandemic levels," the Ember report said.
But despite the increases in demand and generation, Pakistan was the only country, besides Bangladesh, that has witnessed no increase in wind and solar power generation.
"Pakistan was the only country besides Bangladesh that saw no increase in wind and solar generation, simultaneous to a rise in electricity demand," Ember said. “It’s vital that any future surge in electricity demand is met with clean electricity to prevent power sector CO2 emissions from rising substantially."
The country's climate change minister, Malik Amin Aslam, did not respond to requests for comment.
Independent Pakistani analysts say the country has preferred cheap power generation sources and coal perfectly met that condition.
“When electricity usage increases, power generation is done through the cheapest source and coal falls into that category,” Samiullah Tariq, a research director at Pakistan-Kuwait Investment, told Arab News.
He forecast that in the short term, coal power generation in Pakistan was likely to increase, but would drop in the long term.
“In near term the coal power generation in Pakistan will increase," Tariq said. "As the government focuses on renewal power generation the coal generation will gradually decline in long term with declining reliance."
