Most climate scientists believe that carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions must be reduced by at least 50 percent by 2050 to avoid the most dangerous impacts of global climate change. To achieve this objective while also continuing with current lifestyles, countries must decarbonise by reducing the amount of CO 2 emission intensity (CO 2 produced for each unit gross domestic product [GDP]) at greater than 4 percent per year. This seems like an achievable target but, this rate is three times the 1.3 percent per year global average rate sustained since the 1860s. Most of the reduction in CO 2 emission intensity was achieved without any radical policy interventions. Fuels with higher carbon to hydrogen ratio such as firewood were replaced with cheaper fuels with lower carbon to hydrogen ratio such as coal, oil, and gas. The challenge today is that a shift must be engineered artificially through policy in an environment where no one is sure what alternative fuels one can shift to without compromising on fossil fuel lifestyles. In 2010, India committed to a reduction of CO 2 intensity by 20-30 percent of 2005 levels by 2020. This called for India to achieve an average reduction of over 2 percent in a year. India’s CO 2 emission intensity fell from 1.005 in 2005 to about 0.849 in 2020 which is an annual decrease of nearly 1.03 percent and a total decline of over 15 percent (GDP in constant dollars). In 2015, India committed to reducing its CO 2 intensity by 33-35 percent of 2005 levels by 2030 as part of its offer to the Paris Agreement. India is on course to achieve this target and if current trends in CO 2 intensity decline continue, India is likely to overachieve the goal by a huge margin.
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