A MARKAL-MACRO modelling approach to estimate carbon mitigation cost in India

Abstract

Global climate change, energy consumption patterns and economic growth are major issues nowadays for the developing world like India. Owing to global threat of climate change, the Indian economy experiences big challenges to maintain its high growth rate if switched to the clean energy generation for environmental sustainability. In this situation, there is urgent need to formulate solid policy and account for the cost of CO2 mitigation, i.e., effect on GDP. This paper addresses these situations by using MARKAL-MACRO energy model to develop different scenarios up to the year 2045. The result show that the carbon intensity per GDP decreases 2.5% annually during the period 2005 to 2045. The marginal abatement costs vary between 14-245 US$/tC and GDP decreases from 0.12% to 2.4% for the reduction rate between 5% to 50% compared to reference case. Since economic growth remains the priority, it would be more realistic for India to make continuous efforts to reduce carbon emissions by implementing sustainable energy technologies gradually and playing an active role in the international carbon mitigation cooperation mechanism.