Two low carbon development pathways in India

Abstract

This study assumes two different scenarios for India and analyzes the energy system and macroeconomic impacts of GHG emissions reductions which follow the global halving target. The two scenarios are conceptualized as: Advanced (ADV; a society which actively accepts innovations and changes) and Conventional (CNV; a society which is conservative and passive regarding innovations and changes). Both scenarios are constrained by the GHG emissions target, which allows for a 51% increase in 2050 compared with 2005. This target was obtained on the basis of two ideas for 2050: a global 50% reduction target and a globally equally distributed amount of emissions allowed per capita. A dynamic recursive CGE model is applied to assess India’s GHG emissions reduction measures quantitatively. The contributions and findings of this study are: 1) Description of two development pathways to a low-carbon society for India. 2) That significant changes in energy systems were found as results from emissions reduction in both scenarios; however, the reduction measures and the economic impacts differ fundamentally between the scenarios because of differences in the macroeconomic, energy and technology dynamics. 3) That the ADV society, having a much higher potential GDP compared to the CNV, was found to have a potential to emit more GHG and hence would need enhanced emissions reduction measures and higher emissions prices to meet the emissions target. Although the ADV society has the advantage of introducing low-carbon technologies like CCS and renewables, the overall effect results in the ADV society having higher macro-economic impacts from the emissions reduction target: the percentage GDP loss in ADV is 38% higher than that in CNV in 2050. However, since the ADV society’s GDP is more than twice that of CNV in 2050, this does not simply mean that CNV is an economically more desirable society.