Climate change mitigation involves strategies aimed at decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, promoting renewable energy sources, improving energy efficiency, and implementing sustainable practices. CSTEP focuses on building models to simulate India's future across sectors, such as transport, industries, buildings, agriculture, and forestry, to find interventions required to achieve a sustainable and secure future. Our work also involves the study of certain themes that cut across sectors (quality of life and development vs climate action, water and land demands for agriculture vs power, etc).
Systems thinking for doughnut cities
As a populous, dense, and developing country, India needs a comprehensive urbanisation strategy for the coming decades to control its greenhouse gas emissions trajectory. This will also impact the quality of life of Indians as they migrate to urban areas. While many of India’s big cities currently rank poorly in the global liveability index, we believe that planning for policies towards doughnut cities can help achieve sustainable development without exceeding planetary boundaries.
Policy strategies to decarbonise the buildings sector
The Sustainable Alternative Futures for India (SAFARI) model (Kumar et al., 2021) estimates that the buildings sector—directly and indirectly, through its interlinkages with industry and power sectors—accounts for around 30% of India’s annual energy demand and 26% of the nation’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. With the increasing rate of urbanisation and the associated infrastructure development, this is expected to rise further.
India’s need to curb black carbon emissions
At the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow in November 2021, India pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070, positioning itself as a frontrunner in the race to carbon neutrality. According to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, India had installed a renewable energy capacity of over 180 GW by 2023 and is expected to meet its target of 500 GW by 2030.
Press Release: Pathways to Steer India's Buildings Sector Towards a Net-Zero Future
New Delhi, 18 March 2024: ‘By 2030, India is expected to be home to 6 megacities with populations above 10 million. Currently, 17% of India’s urban population lives in slums.
Pathways to Steer India’s Buildings Sector Towards a Net-Zero Future
In the face of the global imperative to limit the rise in temperatures to 1.5 °C (above pre-industrial level), as outlined in the Paris Agreement, nations have been striving to transition towards a net-zero economy. This challenge is particularly pronounced for India, where the dual goals of fulfilling developmental aspirations and curbing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions pose a complex challenge.
Pathways to Steer India’s Buildings Sector Towards a Net-Zero Future
The buildings sector in India is a key contributor to energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions. As most of the buildings that will exist in India in the next 30 years are yet to be constructed, overcoming the challenges posed by the sector will be a deciding factor in India's transition to net zero. Therefore, it is important to explore the different decarbonisation pathways available to achieve India's energy goals.