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International Energy Agency (IEA) chief Fatih Birol has said that India will soon overtake China as the largest driver of global oil demand even as it has an opportunity to become a world leader in green hydrogen production. He said this is primarily because China has seen faster adoption of electric vehicles, leading to a drop in petrol and diesel consumption. He noted that a swelling population, which has likely already surpassed that of China, is driving demand in the world’s third-largest energy-consuming nation. Its transition from fossil fuels to cleaner sources is expected to lag other regions, but cheap electricity produced from renewable energy sources like solar energy can help transform the nation into a green hydrogen leader.

IEA chief said one of the factors for the weakening of oil demand in China is rapid electrification of cars and buses. He hoped that demand in India will go down as electrification (vehicles run on batteries charged by electricity) picks up. EV sales in China nearly doubled to 6.1 million units in 2022 compared to 48,000 vehicles in India in the same period.

He further said in last 5 years, India was the largest contributor to the global solar capacity and it has provided 500 million people access to electricity and given cooking gas to nearly 100 million to eliminate household pollution caused by using wood and others for cooking. And the same can be done with hydrogen - the cleanest known form of energy. He said India can use the cheap electricity it produces from renewable sources to split water to produce green hydrogen. It can emerge as the lowest green hydrogen producer. He said ‘India in my view cannot afford to miss the historical opportunity to be leader, to be a superpower in green hydrogen’.