India’s Low Carbon Inclusive Growth Strategy

India’s low carbon inclusive growth strategy is framed in the context of multiple goals and its national circumstances. In many cases, co-benefits such as energy security, universal access to clean energy at affordable prices, decentralized development, employment generation and improvements in local environmental quality are important. Therefore, the weights for GHG emissions reductions and other goals vary from sector to sector and sometimes among schemes within a sector. For this reason India has opted for bottom-up /sectoral / programme-oriented policies rather than economy-wide GHG emissions reduction policies such as carbon taxation or cap and trade system. India has taken initiatives to enhance energy efficiency in thermal power plants, promote nuclear power and renewable energy and tap energy savings potentials in a few sectors. However, there is heavy reliance on technology development, regulation and subsidies than on use of economic instruments. This paper examines the present policies in the light of the inclusive growth objective and financial and environmental sustainability.