The announcement of India’s 2070 net-zero target has demonstrated the power of a credible policy signal and changed the course of India’s climate debate. While the Government of India (GoI) has not specified whether this target refers to carbon-dioxide or all greenhouse gases, the announcement has been a watershed moment in India’s climate policy. From questions related to whether and at what pace should India decarbonize its economy, various actors in India are now aligned towards this target. An important contribution to inform India’s net-zero journey has come through various modelling assessments undertaken by India’s institutions and researchers. While a few economy-wide net-zero modelling assessments are available, a comprehensive and integrated picture woven collaboratively by India’s climate experts is conspicuously missing. It is critical to complement quantitative modelling-based assessments with insightful perspectives of experts on India’s climate policy. Together, modelling based quantitative assessments and insightful qualitative perspectives of climate experts would be an instrumental force that will ensure that the country achieves its net-zero target by understanding synergies and trade-offs, harnessing opportunities, and avoiding risks along the way. This collaborative article discusses various aspects of pathways towards India’s net-zero goal to address the gap in literature by looking at broad and inter-related dimensions of ‘national and sub-national perspectives’, ‘sectoral and technological transitions’, and ‘enablers’ needed for India’s transition. While the larger net-zero debate relates to all greenhouse gases, we focus on carbon dioxide in our current effort. The assessment aims to inform not just India’s policy makers and stakeholders, but various researchers, practitioners and governments around the world for them to be better aware of the various aspects of India’s net-zero debate. It weaves the perspectives of experts from 24 institutions across the three broad dimensions to give a comprehensive view of a roadmap towards India’s net-zero future.
Click here to read the full article
Vaibhav Chaturvedi, Arunabha Ghosh, Amit Garg, Vidhee Avashia, Saritha Sudharmma Vishwanathan, Dipti Gupta, Nilesh Kumar Sinha, Chandra Bhushan, Srestha Banerjee, Divya Datt, Juhi Bansal, Minal Pathak, Subash Dhar, Ajeet Kumar Singh, Nayeem Khan, Rajani Ranjan Rashmi, Shalu Agrawal, Disha Agarwal, Anjali Singh, Siddharth S Saxena, Vikram Vishal, Udayan Singh, Dharik S Mallapragada, Rajiv Kumar Chaturvedi, Aditya Valiathan Pillai, Vibhuti Garg, Santosh Singh, Kavya Hari, Nandakumar Janardhanan, Eric Zusman, Diptiranjan Mahapatra, Shuva Raha, Tulika Gupta, and Sumit Prasad co-authored the paper.
