




































Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal 3 (1): 151–154, January 2020 

 
BOOK REVIEW 
  

India’s Quest for Low Carbon Transition 
 

P. Balachandra  
 
Rajat Kathuria, Saon Ray and Kuntala Bandyopadhyay, eds. 2018. Low 
Carbon Pathways for Growth in India, New Delhi: Springer, ISBN: 978-981-13-
0904-5 (HB); 978-981-13-0905-2 (eBook), xviii + 188 pp; Euro 114.39 
(Hardbound).  
 

Globally, low carbon transitions have become 
a necessity, especially for large emerging 
economies like India. The good news is that 
since 2000 Indian economy is already in the 
midst of meaningfully trying to reduce its 
carbon intensity — emissions per unit of GDP 
produced. According to the estimates based on 
data from the BP Statistical Review of World 
Energy and the Reserve Bank of India, carbon 
intensity of Indian economy in terms of 
kgCO2 emissions for every 100 Rupees of real 
GDP produced (Base year: 2011-12) has 
reduced from 2.23 in 2000 to 2.09 in 2009 and 
further to 1.76 in 2018.This is a reduction of 
6.5% during the first decade and a significantly 

high 15.6% during the current decade. The trends are positive, and the 
future appears promising. Several factors have contributed to these 
reductions — policy push for renewable energy and low carbon 

                                                        
 Department of Management Studies & Centre for Sustainable Technologies, Indian 
Institute of Science, Bangalore - 560 012, INDIA; patilb@iisc.ac.in 

Copyright © Patil 2020. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 
International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of Economic 
Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581-6152 (print); 2581-6101 (web). 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v3i1.102  

https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v3i1.102


Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [152] 

technologies in the energy sector, energy efficiency in the consuming 
sectors and ever-growing ‗energy light‘ services sector. The future too 
appears more promising for these sectors with the government‘s aggressive 
encouragement for renewable energy in the power and transport sectors. 
However, to achieve India‘s intended commitment to reduce its emissions 
intensity by 30% to 35% by 2030 from the 2005 levels, initiatives will need 
to be more aggressive and creative. Given such a context, the volume edited 
by Rajat Kathuria, Saon Ray and Kuntala Bandyopadhyay provides us with 
an interesting collection of articles that map out the complex challenges 
involved in addressing India's quest for effecting a low carbon transition.  

The edited collection comprises 13 articles. The opening chapter introduces 
the debates and the concluding chapter rounds up the various discussions. 
The remaining 11 articles, contributed by experts on India‘s current energy 
scenario, are distributed under three broad themes. In the first theme, the 
articles offer a macro perspective on the likely pathways India will aim to 
achieve low carbon goals. In Chapter 2, Kaushik Deb and Manoj Kumar 
give a short summary of India‘s four-decade growth trends in the energy 
sector (supply and demand) and its relationship with the GDP growth. No 
significant learnings, in my opinion, are captured. In Chapter 3, Saon Ray 
and Kuntala Bandyopadhyay review various climate change models with a 
focus on understanding their likely economic impacts. It gives a good 
tabulated summary of India-specific climate change models. The chapter, 
however, ends abruptly without offering any insights. Chapter 4 by 
Himanshu Gupta contains an elaborate discussion on the NITI Aayog‘s 
Reference Energy Scenario for 2047, which explored possibilities for India 
adopting several low-carbon pathways. Interestingly, it is noted that such 
low carbon pathways require an investment of about 0.7% of GDP 
between 2012-2047 for a 40% reduction in carbon emissions compared to a 
reference scenario. According to the author, such investment is worthwhile, 
and reductions are achievable given that India is yet to produce 90% of 
steel and build 80% of residential buildings required till 2047. In Chapter 5, 
Vaibhav Chaturvedi estimates the costs of inaction in reducing the 
country‘s carbon footprint. The author‘s estimates are wildly speculative 
and fraught; such an exercise would be akin to predicting the world of 2020 
by experts drawn from the 1920s.  

The second theme deals with discussions on potential interventions in 
specific economic sectors with case studies drawn from Indian Railways 
and Municipal Water Supply. In Chapter 6, Zeba Aziz argues for the 
adoption of the ―Avoid-Shift-Improve‖ approach for low carbon transition. 
This approach advocates that urban systems be optimally designed to 
―avoid‖ motorized transport, and if that is inevitable then there should be a 



[153] P. Balachandra 

―shift‖ to public/non-motorized transport while simultaneously working to 
―improve‖ fuel efficiencies. The authors, Saon Ray and Nandini Kumar, in 
Chapter 7, similarly urge for adopting energy efficiency and renewable 
energy for mitigating carbon emissions in the industrial sector. The plea for 
significant de-carbonization of the Indian Railways through electrification 
from renewable energy sources is the topic for discussion by T.S. 
Ramakrishnan in Chapter 8. This chapter is a summary of the detailed 
feasibility study carried out to explore the possibility of carrying out the 
complete de-carbonization of the Indian railways by 2030-31. The 
projections for 2030-31 suggest that the railways require to install 90-150 
GW (Gigawatt) of solar capacity to generate 136-225 TWh (Terra Watt-
hour) of electricity.  

Chapter 9 by Indro Roy and Chapter 11 by Nilanjan Ghosh, in the third 
segment, contain discussions on water resources management and their 
linkage to climate change and low carbon growth from two divergent 
perspectives – urban water supply and irrigation water supply for 
agriculture. In Chapter 10, Indro Roy brings out the unique aspects of solar 
energy, given its modularity and ease of scale-up, in terms of its ability to 
meet both the needs of India‘s energy security through large-scale power 
generation and the universal energy access through off-grid electrification. 
The author here touches upon the important issue of geopolitics in India‘s 
quest for energy security, especially given its over- dependence on the 
Middle East for crude oil and on China for solar infrastructure. The 
expanded geopolitics of energy security is discussed in Chapter 12 by 
Subhomoy Bhattacharjee. He discusses the India-China dynamics in the 
context of energy logistics in the Indian Ocean. On the whole, the articles 
and the discussions are predominantly dependent on secondary sources — 
literature, databases, scenarios, estimates, perceptions, etc. It is basically, a 
synthesis of already available knowledge.  

The editors, in my opinion, appear to argue for practical and commonsense 
positions while stating that ―the world is likely to be very different in 2030,‖ 
and predicting ―the future is hazardous‖ (p. 187). Given rapid technological 
changes, and the disruptive transitions in human lifestyles and business 
models (including energy delivery), the India of 2030 cannot be visualized 
from the data of 2010–15. This is one of the weaknesses of this book. This 
is evident from the recommendations from the authors – energy efficiency 
and renewable energy as strategies for achieving low carbon growth across 
sectors. Since India has already made significant progress concerning these 
two interventions, it is natural for any reader to expect a novel and unique 
set of strategies that could be effective in accelerating the low-carbon 
transition in the Indian economy.  



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [154] 

Overall the book is well written, and a useful addition to the collection of 
books on sustainable development and climate change mitigation. This 
book would be of help to researchers, policy makers, NGOs, practitioners 
from the public and private organizations, donor agencies, etc. It can 
function as a reference book for all the above stakeholders in planning for a 
low-carbon transition. 

 

 

 


