New Delhi: In 2025, India’s carbon dioxide emissions grew the slowest they ever have in the last two decades, according to an analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), an independent research organisation. Per the analysis, published in Carbon Brief, the country’s carbon emissions grew only by 0.5% in the second half of 2025 and by just 0.7% in the year as a whole. In contrast, the four years before 2025 witnessed a growth of 4-11%.Though this could signal a “lasting slowdown in emissions”, India is still planning major expansions in its capacity for coal power, petrochemicals and coal-based steel, the report noted.Record clean energy growthIn 2025, carbon emissions in the power sector in India fell by 3.8% as record clean-energy growth combined with weak electricity demand.Per the report, new clean-energy capacity in 2025 will add a record 90 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity output each year, double the previous record set in 2024. In 2025, India added 38 gigawatts (GW) of solar, 6.3 GW of wind, 4.0 GW of hydropower and 0.6 GW of nuclear power.Another reason why the growth of carbon emissions declined was that the power sector emissions dropped in 2025: the total power demand in India slowed down from 7.4% in 2019-23 to 1%.Dips in coal-fuelled power generationPer the new report, India also witnessed a drop in coal-fuelled power generation in 2025. The largest reductions in coal-fired power generation occurred in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. These states also led in the deployment of new solar and wind power projects in the same year.Source: Carbon Brief: “Analysis: India’s CO2 emissions in 2025 grew at slowest rate in two decades”.In January, CREA had reported that coal power generation fell in both China and India in 2025 after both countries added record amounts of clean energy. The last time both countries registered a drop in coal power output was in 1973. These shifts by India and China have “international implications”, CREA had noted, because the power sectors of the two countries drove 93% of the rise in global carbon dioxide emissions from 2015-2024.In 2025, consumption of imported coal at power plants fell by 20%, while gas imports fell by 6% and net oil imports were flat year-on-year, reducing India’s vulnerability to the impacts of the Iran war, the latest CREA analysis found. It also found that coal imports continued to fall in early 2026. However, the government is reported to be considering the use of an emergency clause that “would force coal power plants that run on imported coal to maximise output ahead of the summer season”, due to the impact of the Iran war on gas supplies, it noted.Decline in oil demandsOil demand slowed from a 3.9% growth in 2024 to 0.4% in 2025, because the demand for oil in the petrochemical and cement industry fell. This happened because the demand fell for naphtha (used as chemical industry feedstock), petcoke (used in cement production) and other oil products due to an increase in India’s imports of plastics and precursors, which rose by 7% in volume terms. Oil demand in the petrochemical industry will fall further, and a dip in oil demand is also expected in the steel and cement sectors, per the new report.The main factor for India’s carbon emissions in 2025 was due to a strong growth in output for steel and cement, which went up by 8% and 10%, respectively, per the report.Despite clean energy being able to replace a lot of India’s power demands, India plans to add 85 GW of new coal-fired power capacity over the next seven years, the report noted. The country is also targeting USD 1 trillion of investment in the petrochemical industry by 2040, a 50% increase in steel production capacity from 2025 to 2031 and a 25% increase in cement production capacity in the three years from 2026 to 2028.