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Co-Benefits of CDM’s Renewable Energy Projects in India and Their Contribution to SDGs

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Handbook of Climate Change Management

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Abstract

In international climate policy, a reform of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is currently discussed in order to establish a mechanism under the Paris Agreement starting after 2020 that will focus more strongly on sustainable development (SD). An assessment of SD benefits resulting from CDM projects based on the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is proposed, but only a few studies have applied such an approach.

This chapter identifies renewable energy (RE) projects’ contribution to reaching the SDGs in India. For this purpose, we review related scientific literature and the Project Design Documents (PDDs) of the CDM. We find that the considered projects can contribute to 14 of the 17 SDGs in total. In addition to clean energy (SDG 7) and climate benefits (SDG 13), all the RE project types have the potential to contribute to poverty reduction (SDG 1), facilitating education and training (SDG 4), stimulating employment (SDG 8), developing sustainable and resilient infrastructure (SDG 9), and reducing air pollution (SDG 11). Solar and wind projects make a considerable contribution especially to economic targets. Overall, these both project types are expected to provide the most benefits. This is indeed reflected by a large amount of solar and wind projects under the CDM in India relative to those projects concerning other renewables, e.g., biomass projects are relatively rare and tend to support only a few SDGs.

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Acknowledgment

Financial support from the PPP program by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is gratefully acknowledged (Programm Projektbezogener Personenaustausch Indien UGC 2019, Project no. 57453122). We also thank Philip Mayer for very helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Freiberg, Germany

    Theresa Stahlke & Dirk Rübbelke

  2. Global Centre for Environment and Energy, Ahmedabad University, Ahmedabad, India

    Shreya Some

  3. Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India

    Shreya Some & Vivekananda Mukherjee

Authors
  1. Theresa Stahlke
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  2. Shreya Some
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  3. Vivekananda Mukherjee
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  4. Dirk Rübbelke
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Correspondence to Theresa Stahlke .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Johannes M. Luetz

  2. College of Development Studies Food Security Studies, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Desalegn Ayal

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Stahlke, T., Some, S., Mukherjee, V., Rübbelke, D. (2021). Co-Benefits of CDM’s Renewable Energy Projects in India and Their Contribution to SDGs. In: Luetz, J.M., Ayal, D. (eds) Handbook of Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57281-5_301

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