India

Historical emissions are taken from the PRIMAP data for the period 1990-2019 (Gütschow, J.; Günther, A.; Jeffery, L.; Gieseke, 2021).

2020-2021 estimates
We estimate emissions in 2020-2021 using a gas-by-gas approach. For CO₂ emissions, we use the growth rates from the Global Carbon Budget estimates for India (Global Carbon Project, 2022). For F-gases, we use GDP growth as a proxy and apply that to 2019 levels (IMF, 2022). We assume no impact from the pandemic on agriculture and waste, the main sectors behind CH₄ and N₂O emissions, and use the five-year historical trend to estimate those emissions.

LULUCF
LULUCF emissions are taken directly from India’s third Biennial Report (MoEFCC, 2021). These estimates are calculated using global warming potential (GWP) values from the IPCC’s second assessment report. We have not converted these into AR4 values as the contribution from non-CO₂ gases is negligible.

2030 target
Emissions intensity target
We estimate 2030 GDP using IMF GDP growth estimates for 2022-2027 and trend estimates for the rest of the decade, based off of World Bank GDP data for 1990-2021 (World Bank, 2022).

We calculate the emissions intensity in 2005 using our historic emissions estimate and World Bank GDP data and then apply a 45% reduction. We multiply this emissions intensity level to our 2030 GDP estimate to derive our emissions estimate.

50% non-fossil installed capacity target
The 50% capacity target is based on the current policy pathway (details below) and is calculated by replacing non-fossil power with fossil power. We use the generating factor of the underlying scenario (WEO or draft NEP) to calculate the extent of non-fossil generation and then subtract that from total generation to derive the new level of fossil generation. We use the emissions factor of the underlying scenario to determine the level of emissions and then harmonise the anticipated higher emissions to our current policy scenario.

500 GW target (COP26 announcement)
The lower bound of our current policy projection is based on the NEP, which includes around 545 GW in 2030 and so no adjustments have been made to it.

The upper bound of our current policy projection is based on the IEA WEO 2021, which includes 473 GW of non-fossil capacity. We adjust this to 500 GW, assume total generation and the capacity factors remain constant and use those to calculate the estimated remaining fossil capacity and then adjust the emissions estimates accordingly.

Net Zero target
We estimate India’s emissions in 2070 for the purpose of our global temperature estimate. We assume that India achieves the top end of its carbon sink NDC target of 3 GtCO₂, which we average over the 2016-2030 period for an annual additional sink of 200 MtCO₂. We add this to the last historic emissions data for LULUCF (308 MtCO₂ in 2016), for an estimated sink of 508 MtCO₂, and assume that this will reflect India’s residual level of emissions.

2020 pledge
The assessment of the 2020 pledge is based on our estimate for 2020 emissions (as described above) and 2020 GDP data from the World Bank (in million USD2018 (MER)).

The 2020 pledge excludes agriculture emissions. After calculating the emissions reduction range excluding agriculture emissions, we add those emissions back to the total so that it is comparable to our historical emissions estimate.

CO₂ emissions
Upper end of scenario range: We use the growth rates from the IEA’s 2021 stated policies scenario for India’s CO2 emissions. The IEA’s CO₂ emissions estimate now includes industry process emissions and thus is a good proxy for all of India’s CO₂ emissions (IEA, 2021b).

Lower end of scenario range: We use the CO₂ emissions estimates in the draft National Electricity Plan (NEP) for 2022-2032 for the power sector, but otherwise continue to use the IEA data for the rest of the CO₂ emissions (Ministry of Power, 2022c). Emissions data for 2020, 2026 and 2031, we have inferred data for the intervening years. India reports data on a Q2 to Q1 of the following year basis. For the sake of simplicity, we allot the data for a fiscal year (e.g. April 2021-March 2022) to the calendar year (e.g. 2021). Directly replacing the power sector emissions estimates would result in a drop in emissions in the early part of the decade, due to the lower power sector emissions estimates. As this is unlikely to reflect reality, we take the 2030 value to be correct and interpolate the intervening years.

Other gases
We use the US EPA non-CO₂ emissions projection growth rates for the CH₄, N₂O and F-gases and harmonise these to the latest historic year (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2019).

The CAT uses Global Warming Potential (GWP) values from the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) for all its figures and time series, unless otherwise stated. Assessments completed prior to December 2018 (COP24) used GWP values from the Second Assessment Report (SAR).