Sustainable Low Carbon Urban Mobility: An Assessment of Future Scenarios and Policies for India

Abstract

Under business-as-usual development, emissions from the transportation system that delivers mobility, given its high fossil-fuel dependence, are expected to exacerbate local air pollution across India's cities and add to CO2 emissions that cause global climate change. Studies show these externalities are significant and emphasize on alignment of national, sectoral and local development policies with climate change targets to gain multiple co-benefits in the long run. There are also opportunities to gain incremental funds through carbon finance mechanisms for projects that mitigate greenhouse gases. Studies in the Indian context that quantify the long-term co-benefits of aligning global climate change targets with local and national development goals are rather limited. The study has explored this gap. The study uses an integrated assessment framework to assess the long-term co-benefits from a passenger mobility system aligned to climate and development goals at national, city (Ahmedabad) and project (metro rail) levels. The conjoint GHG emissions and local air pollutant reductions are estimated for business-as-usual (BAU) and sustainable low carbon mobility (SLCM) scenarios. The alternative scenarios are constructed to investigate the impact of a mix of strategies that involves environmental policies, fuel standards, penetration of alternative vehicle technologies, consumer behaviour, etc. A project level case study of a metro rail is used to show the access to carbon funds using the Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) framework. The results for the National passenger mobility case study show that by 2050: (i) passenger mobility demand reduces by 10%, (ii) energy demand reduces by 43%, (iii) CO2 emissions decrease by 69% and (iv) PM2.5 emissions decrease by 40% in SLCM compared to the BAU. For the Ahmedabad passenger mobility system, by 2035: (i) the passenger mobility demand decreases by 20%, (ii) energy demand decreases by 32%, (iii) CO2 emissions reduce by 41% and (iv) PM2.5 emissions decrease by 70%, due to various interventions in SLCM compared to BAU. The major contributions of the study include integrated assessment modeling, scenario analysis, addition to the city and national scenario databases, development of a framework for determining potential revenue generation through carbon finance mechanisms for sustainable low carbon mobility projects, and related policy contributions.