Pathways for meeting India’s climate goals
Over the past decade, India has taken several steps to address climate change while supporting long-term development objectives. This paper analyzes the climate change mitigation goals that have been set and the key policies that have been and are being implemented. The objective is threefold: to enhance understanding of India’s goals, to evaluate implementation progress, and to identify opportunities for enhancing ambition. Analysis finds that India is making progress toward its 2030 mitigation goal, but further transparency is needed to support robust greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting. The 2030 mitigation goal is within reach through the full and effective implementation of the five key policies and actions we analyzed: Perform, Achieve, and Trade (PAT) scheme; Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC); clean environment cess; renewable power by 2022; and Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC; energy efficiency in the services sector). Moreover, India can meet its goal while maintaining gross domestic product (GDP) growth and delivering significant development benefits. India can reduce its GHG emissions intensity even further through a set of targeted interventions that address existing policy, institutional, financial, and technological barriers.