India's CO2 emissions pathways to 2050: Energy system, economic and fossil fuel impacts with and without carbon permit trading

Fast-emerging (yet still relatively less developed) economies such as India are understandably cautious about committing to emissions reduction targets that could be economically costly. The tensions between continuing short-term economic growth whilst investing in low-carbon technologies for long-term decarbonisation could be eased if there were significant financial and non-climate potential benefits of decarbonisation for these economies. This study explores some of the potential benefits for India, by analysing its long-term mitigation options in the context of global action towards a 2 °C target, using an energy systems model (The University College London TIMES Integrated Assessment Model, or TIAM-UCL) which represents India explicitly, as one of 16 global regions. The study finds that India could significantly over-achieve against a 2050 low-carbon target based on equal per capita emissions by 2050, at mitigation costs below the global carbon price, implying that it could earn significant revenues through selling international carbon credits, thereby offsetting some of the costs of decarbonisation. In addition, India would see much lower levels of fossil fuel consumption in a low-carbon scenario, thereby alleviating potential economic difficulties in securing access to adequate supplies of these fuels.