Indian Climate Policy: Choices and Challenges - The Stimson Center

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has nearly tripled over the same period, with GDP soaring from US$ 1.1 trillion
in 1990 to US$ 3.1 trillion in 2008 (2008 US$ using Purchasing Power Parity).
On a PPP basis, India’s vertiginous ascent has made it the planet’s fourth biggest
economy, behind the US, China, and Japan. Such growth rates have established
India as a crucial environmental and economic power in the global arena.
According to the latest projections by the International Energy Agency (IEA), by
2030 Indian GDP will more than quadruple to US$ 12.5 trillion, vaulting the
country past Japan among the world’s preeminent economies. So too, however,
the IEA reference scenario foresees India’s annual CO 2 emissions surging to 3.4
Gt, overtaking Russia to claim third place among the world’s predominant
emitters. 1
Yet despite India’s prodigious expansion in recent years, it remains very much a
developing country. In 2005, more than 41 percent of the Indian population,
some 450 million people, survived on less than US$ 1.25 a day, the World
Bank’s international poverty line benchmark. More than four in five Indians in
rural areas and nearly half of city dwellers lacked improved sanitation services.
And Indians consumed just 91 kilowatt hours (kwh) of electric power per head
for domestic use, compared to their industrialized Asian neighbors who used
3,000 kwh in Australia and 2,162 kwh in Japan. Meanwhile, 44 percent of the
population still had no access to electricity at all. 2 India’s emissions profile
ultimately reflects this economic reality. With 17 percent of the world’s
inhabitants, India emits only 4.5 percent of the world’s carbon. In 2006 the
average Indian produced 1.13 metric tons of CO 2 , the lowest of all the G20
economies, including fellow developing nations Brazil, China, Mexico, and
South Africa. Indeed, Indian per capita emissions amounted to just 26 percent of
the world average and 6 percent of the 19 metric tons of CO 2 generated by the
average American every year. 3
Economic development and poverty alleviation thus constitute primordial policy
preoccupations for Indian policymakers. By some estimates, India will need to
maintain economic growth rates of 8 percent to 10 percent in order to eradicate
poverty and attain its human development goals. To realize sustained 8 percent
annual growth, India would in turn need to expand its primary energy supply
three to fourfold and boost electricity supply by some five to seven times current
1 International Energy Agency. CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion: 2008 Edition (Paris: OECD/IEA, 2008);
International Energy Agency. How the Energy Sector Can Deliver on a Climate Agreement in Copenhagen: Special
Early Excerpt from the World Energy Outlook 2009 for the Bangkok UNFCCC Meeting (Paris: OECD/IEA, 2009).
2 United Nations Economic and Social Survey for Asia and the Pacific. Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the
Pacific 2009 (New York: UN, 2009), pp. 188, 190, 191; Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change. National
Action Plan on Climate Change (New Delhi: Government of India, 2008), p.13.
3 IEA, 2008, op. cit.