Is India on the right pathway to reduce CO₂ emissions? Decomposing an enlarged Kaya identity using the LMDI method...

Nowadays, India is the third-largest CO₂ emitter and energy consumer in the world, and, it is soon expected to surpass China as the most populated country. Therefore, it is of great interest to analyse how India is developing its energy transition to a lower-carbon economy. This work analyses the evolution of the main driving forces of CO₂ emissions in India during the period 1990-2016 through the use of an enlarged version of the Kaya identity, which establishes a link between CO₂ emissions, types of energy sources (16), size of the economic sectors (3) and value of the Gross Domestic Product. India's CO₂ emissions increased by 276% in the period under study, due to the rapid economic growth of India, which has been the dominating driving force contributing to the increase in CO₂ emissions by 241%, while the energy intensity has been the main one reducing them by approximately -47%. So far, the use of coal has supported the rapid economic growth and the contribution of renewable energy, although significant, is still short compared to the total amount of energy employed. Remarkably, the estimated value of the emission intensity for 2020 supposes a 26% reduction concerning the value in 2005. According to this result, India is on the right pathway to fulfil its Nationally Determined Contribution but not to reduce its net CO₂ emissions.