FUTURE GREENHOUSE GAS AND LOCAL POLLUTANT EMISSIONS FOR INDIA: POLICY LINKS AND DISJOINTS AMIT GARG 1,∗ , P.R. SHUKLA 2 , DEBYANI GHOSH 3 , MANMOHAN KAPSHE 4 and NAIR RAJESH 4 1 Project Management Cell, NATCOM Project, Winrock International India; 7, Poorvi Marg, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi – 110057, India 2 Public Systems Group, Indian Institute of Management, Vastrapur, Ahmedabad 380015, India 3 Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, U.S.A. 4 Indian Institute of Management, Vastrapur, Ahmedabad 380015, India ( ∗ author for correspondence: Tel.: 91-11-26141837; Fax: 91-11-26141837; E-mail: dramitgarg@yahoo.co.in) (Received 6 December 2002; accepted in final form 28 May 2003) Abstract. This paper estimates the future greenhouse gas (GHG) and local pollutant emissions for India under various scenarios. The reference scenario assumes continuation of the current official policies of the Indian government and forecasts of macro-economic, demographic and energy sector indicators. Other scenarios analyzed are the economic growth scenarios (high and low), carbon mitig- ation scenario, sulfur mitigation scenario and frozen (development) scenario. The main insight is that GHG and local pollutant emissions from India, although connected, do not move in synchronization in future and have a disjoint under various scenarios. GHG emissions continue to rise while local pollutant emissions decrease after some years. GHG emission mitigation therefore would have to be pursued for its own sake in India. National energy security concerns also favor this conclusion since coal is the abundant national resource while most of the natural gas has to be imported. The analysis of contributing factors to this disjoint indicates that sulfur reduction in petroleum oil products and penetration of flue gas desulfurisation technologies are the two main contributors for sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) mitigation. The reduction in particulate emissions is mainly due to enforcing electro-static precipitator efficiency norms in industrial units, with cleaner fuels and vehicles also contributing substantially. These policy trends are already visible in India. Another insight is that high economic growth is better than lower growth to mitigate local pollution as lack of investible resources limits in- vestments in cleaner environmental measures. Our analysis also validates the environmental Kuznets’ curve for India as Sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) emissions peak around per capita GDP of US$ 5,300–5,400 (PPP basis) under various economic growth scenarios. Keywords: disjoint, future emissions, Kuznets’ curve, mitigation, scenario analysis 1. Introduction Economic growth, energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have profound linkages in developing countries (IPCC 2000). Expanding industrialization, in- creasing incomes, rapidly rising transport and modernizing agriculture have led to rapidly rising energy consumption in India over the past decade. The Indian gross domestic product (GDP) has grown at 5.7 percent per annum during the eighties Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 8: 71–92, 2003. © 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.