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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.

With the transportation sector growing considerably and demand for transport fuels rising globally, this study looks at the current and future status and technical/economic potential of lignocellulosic biofuels in India in a business-as-usual (BAU), national policy on biofuel (NPB) and 2 ℃ climate stabilization scenarios. It identifies key challenges in achieving the country’s biofuel targets, and analyses their role in India’s long-term transport scenarios. In this study, we have used ANSWER MARKAL model to assess the economic potential of biofuels obtained through lignocellulosic agricultural residues. The results indicate that the current ethanol and biodiesel availability in India through the first generation biofuel route is not sufficient to meet the country’s biofuel target. On the other hand, lignocellulosic agricultural residues can produce 38 and 51 billion litres of lignocellulosic ethanol/BTL in 2020 and 2030, respectively, which would be sufficient to meet the NPB’s 20 percent blending by 2030. Apart from biofuel availability, we assess the investment requirement for second generation biofuel industry, reduction in carbon dioxide emissions and impact on rural employment in different scenarios.

The Climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December 2009 witnessed the emerging power of Brazil, South Africa, India, and China (BASIC). Although still focussed on domestic development goals, BASIC countries have made important steps toward a greater engagement in the global climate agenda. For India, the shift was marked by a voluntary, but conditional, target of reducing emission intensity, away from the past normative position based on “equal per capita,” emissions entitlements. The new track aims at finding cost-effective mitigation strategies that align national development goals and climate actions. This paper examines the mitigation potential of a domestic sustainable development policy using a suite of integrated assessment models. The long-term goal is to keep temperature increase below 2°C. This article shows that it is possible to match domestic development goals and climate mitigation. Win–win options exist and side benefits—in terms of energy security and local pollution—are important. However, development policies are not sufficient to achieve the desired emissions reductions. We find that it is necessary to introduce a constraint on the carbon budget. The price of carbon that emerges is however much lower than in a conventional mitigation scenario. Finally, this paper proposes to shift the negotiations away from the current climate-centric focus toward “development,” in order to reduce conflicts and deliver greater global and national benefits.

The Paris Agreement introduces long-term strategies as an instrument to inform progressively more ambitious emission reduction objectives, while holding development goals paramount in the context of national circumstances. In the lead up to the twenty-first Conference of the Parties, the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project developed mid-century low-emission pathways for 16 countries, based on an innovative pathway design framework. In this Perspective, we describe this framework and show how it can support the development of sectorally and technologically detailed, policy-relevant and country-driven strategies consistent with the Paris Agreement climate goal. We also discuss how this framework can be used to engage stakeholder input and buy-in; design implementation policy packages; reveal necessary technological, financial and institutional enabling conditions; and support global stocktaking and increasing of ambition.The Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project develops a framework to design low-emission development pathways. This Perspective discusses the framework and how it can support the development of national strategies to meet climate targets, as well as help achieve stakeholder engagement.

Electric mobility is progressing at varied paces for different vehicle segments, and in many countries, significant barriers exist, which is reflected in the very low share of electricity in final energy consumption. The EU-funded SOLUTIONSplus project, which promotes sustainable urban transport through electric mobility, demonstrated e-three-wheelers in Dar es Salam and Kathmandu, remodelled Safa tempos in Kathmandu, e-moto taxis in Kigali, e-mopeds in Hanoi, and bus conversion in Kathmandu. These prototypes, developed, produced and/or assembled by local firms, were specifically designed to replace fossil fuel-powered two-wheelers, three-wheelers and buses, reflecting local conditions and aims. The assessment of demonstrations uses financial cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and key sustainability indicators based on local stakeholders’ priorities. All demonstration vehicles turned out profitable in cases where they replaced an existing ICE vehicle. The upfront cost of electric vehicles is high. However, the total cost of operations of electric vehicles has shown that they are more profitable in the long run. and also have significant social, environmental and climate benefits. The CO 2 reduction is substantial for all EVs since they replace ICE vehicles, however, these can increase further if electricity grids can be decarbonised. Since EVs have no tailpipe emissions of (NO X , PM) the reductions of local emissions are 100%; however, improvements in emission standards for ICE vehicles will reduce the advantage of EVs in future. EVs in themselves cannot lead to improvements in accessibility, affordability and travel time savings. However, when they are used to expand/complement public transport, they can improve accessibility (Dar es Salam) and deliver time-savings (Hanoi).

This paper analyses the technology choices of countries that prioritized transport as a sector in Asia under the Technology Needs Assessment project. The countries used a wide variety of criteria to prioritize technologies which were related to the benefits technologies would provide, costs of technologies and availability of technology charactersitics. Non-motorized transport, mass transit and technologies that improve vehicle energy efficiency emerged as the three most preferred technology choices for the countries. These technology choices can be appropriate candidates for nationally appropriate mitigations actions (NAMA) given their strong contribution for developmentand therefore a methodology based on input-output decomposition analysis isproposed for analysing economy wide CO sub(2) emissions reductions. The methodologyhas been applied for the transport sector of Lebanon where alternative fuels,improvement to cars (private and taxis) and buses for public transport were prioritized by stakeholders. The economy-wide CO sub(2) emission reduce by 2,269 thousand tons by 2020 if the prioritized technologies are implemented in Lebanon. Fuel mix effect and structural effect would reduce CO sub(2) emission by 2,611 thousand tons, while the final demand effect would increase the CO sub(2) emission by 342 thousand tons.

Issue Title: Governance, enabling frameworks and policies for the transfer and diffusion of low carbon and climate adaptation technologies in developing countries

This paper analyses the technology choices of countries that prioritized transport as a sector in Asia under the Technology Needs Assessment project. The countries used a wide variety of criteria to prioritize technologies which were related to the benefits technologies would provide, costs of technologies and availability of technology charactersitics. Non-motorized transport, mass transit and technologies that improve vehicle energy efficiency emerged as the three most preferred technology choices for the countries. These technology choices can be appropriate candidates for nationally appropriate mitigations actions (NAMA) given their strong contribution for developmentand therefore a methodology based on input-output decomposition analysis isproposed for analysing economy wide CO 2 emissions reductions. The methodologyhas been applied for the transport sector of Lebanon where alternative fuels,improvement to cars (private and taxis) and buses for public transport were prioritized by stakeholders. The economy-wide CO 2 emission reduce by 2,269 thousand tons by 2020 if the prioritized technologies are implemented in Lebanon. Fuel mix effect and structural effect would reduce CO 2 emission by 2,611 thousand tons, while the final demand effect would increase the CO 2 emission by 342 thousand tons.

Low-carbon society scenarios visualize social, economic and technological transitions through which societies respond to climate change. This article assesses two paradigms for transiting to a low-carbon future in India. An integrated modelling framework is used for delineating and assessing the alternative development pathways having equal cumulative CO 2 emissions during the first half of the 21st century. The first pathway assumes a conventional development pattern together with a carbon price that aligns India's emissions to an optimal 550 ppmv CO 2 e stabilization global response. The second emissions pathway assumes an underlying sustainable development pattern characterized by diverse response measures typical of the 'sustainability' paradigm. A comparative analysis of the alternative development strategies is presented on multiple indicators such as energy security, air quality, technology stocks and adaptive capacity, and conclusions are drawn.