What is India's pathway to limit global warming to 1.5°C?
LULUCF
India’s LULUCF sector
India’s LULUCF sector is a net carbon sink, absorbing more than it emits, with its net LULUCF emissions for 2020 at -499 MtCO₂e.1 From 2000 to 2020, the LULUCF sink increased by 135%. While forests, cropland, settlements and harvested wood products are a net sink, grasslands are the only net emitter category, contributing around 9 MtCO₂e.
Between 2001 and 2024 Indian deforestation and forest degradation caused emissions of 53.6 MtCO₂e per year degradation but remain a net sink of -80.3 MtCO₂e per year.2 Deforestation and forest degradation in India are primarily driven by mining, road construction and irrigation, which all contribute to forest cover loss.3
India’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) includes a target to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5–3 GtCO₂e by 2030 through expanded forest and tree cover.4 Official statements claim that India already amassed an additional 1.97 GtCO₂e carbon sink by 2019, rising to 2.29 GtCO₂e in 2024, suggesting that the country is on track to meet or even exceed its 2030 goal.5 The government recently clarified that the baseline year for this target is 2005, but by adopting this baseline, the government’s accounting risks counting sequestration that might have occurred through natural regrowth or long-term trends, rather than from new interventions specifically driven by policy.6
India’s long-term policy further relies on its sink. The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023, explicitly acknowledges the role of forests as carbon sinks for achieving India’s 2070 net-zero target.7
India's LULUCF emissions
MtCO₂ / year
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Graph description
Historical CO2 emissions 1990-2020 for the land-use sector are taken from the country's First Biennial Transparency Report where available, and otherwise from Grassi et al (2022): Carbon fluxes from land 2000–2020: bringing clarity to countries' reporting. Future emissions, covering the period 2025-2070, follow a 1.5°C-compatible pathway downscaled to the national level. Positive values represent emissions from deforestation, harvesting, and soil respiration, while negative values reflect CO₂ removals through afforestation and reforestation.
Methodology
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1.5ºC compatible LULUCF pathways
For India we focus on the Deep Electrification pathway, as it relies less heavily on carbon sink than the other two. Other scenarios have much greater reliance on an expanded sink, which could lead to negative impacts on biodiversity and traditional land-users. In the Deep Electrification pathway, India’s LULUCF remains a net sink, with the 2020 carbon sink peak declining steadily over the rest of the time horizon.
The 1.5°C compatible pathways analysed here indicate that despite the sink declining after 2030, India’s LULUCF sector remains a net sink until 2070. The Deep Electrification pathway, which best captures how the rapidly declining cost of renewables could revolutionise the energy transition, shows removals from the LULUCF sector peak at 2028-2032 with 418 MtCO₂e removals per year, before declining and reaching 153 MtCO₂e removals per year towards the end of the century as the energy transition does more of the heavy lifting to reduce overall emissions.
As the net emissions from the LULUCF sector is projected to achieve significant decline, it highlights that India should not rely on a large carbon sink to meet its net zero targets by 2070, especially considering the declining capacity of this sink over time.
This decline reflects multiple interacting factors. As planted trees mature, their sequestration potential saturates.8,9 At the same time, climate risks such as fires, droughts, storms and pests increasingly undermine forest carbon uptake.10,11 The effect of CO₂ fertilisation also weakens as emissions fall in 1.5°C pathways and other limiting factors, such as water stress, intensify.12 A recent study of India’s forest also shows declining ecosystem productivity and carbon stock resilience, raising concerns about the long-term sustainability of forest-based removals under climate stress.13
India's LULUCF emissions
MtCO₂ / year
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Graph description
Historical CO2 emissions 1990-2020 for the land-use sector are taken from the country's First Biennial Transparency Report where available, and otherwise from Grassi et al (2022): Carbon fluxes from land 2000–2020: bringing clarity to countries' reporting. Future emissions, covering the period 2025-2070, follow a 1.5°C-compatible pathway downscaled to the national level. Positive values represent emissions from deforestation, harvesting, and soil respiration, while negative values reflect CO₂ removals through afforestation and reforestation.
Methodology
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Forestry activities
As of the 2023 India State of Forest Report (ISFR), forests and tree cover together accounted for 25% of India’s geographical area, up from about 21% in 2005, comprising 22% recorded forest cover and 3.4% tree cover outside forests.14 These gains mark progress but remain well below the long-standing national target of 33% forest and tree cover, first proposed in the 1952 National Forest Policy and reiterated in later policy frameworks.
The Deep Electrification pathway shows a very marginal increase in net change in forest cover, with average gains of 0.3 Mha/year from this decade through the 2050s. The large gains in forest area in the Net-Zero pathway are concentrated in this decade, boosting forest area by 1-1.2 Mha/year. Importantly, the expansion of overall forest and tree cover cannot substitute for the ecological richness and resilience provided by intact natural forests, which are more effective in maintaining biodiversity and long-term carbon storage.
Forest dynamics in India remain complex. India continues to lose natural forests, driven largely by development pressures including road construction and other infrastructure. Between 2021 and 2024 India lost 602 kha of natural forest, equivalent to 273 MtCO2e.15 Historically, India accounted for about 2.5% of Asia’s total forest loss, but under this 1.5°C compatible pathway, deforestation is fully halted by 2030, allowing residual emissions to approach zero while maintaining a net sink.16 This highlights the critical need for stronger focus on the risks associated with declining carbon sink capacity and the importance of ensuring other emission reduction strategies are in place to meet India’s 1.5°C-compatible goals.
India's Forest area change
Million hectares / year
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Graph description
The graph presents five-year averages of changes in forest area. Negative values represent losses in forest area due to deforestation and harvesting, referred to as "forest loss". Historical forest loss data cover the period 2001-2025 and are sourced from Global Forest Watch (2025). Positive values represent forest area expansion through afforestation and/or reforestation, referred to as "forest gain". Historical forest gain data cover the period 2001-2020 and are sourced from the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment (2025). Future changes in forest area, covering the period 2026-2070, follow a 1.5°C-compatible pathway downscaled to the national level.
Methodology
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