The total primary energy consumption of the transport sector in India has been steadily increasing since 1990 from 0.9 EJ in 1990 to 4.4 EJ in 2019.5 In 2019, the sector consumed 17% of total primary energy and 1.5% of electricity. Paris Agreement compatible pathways which require a rapid electrification of the sector show a share of electricity in total energy mix reaching 10-60% by 2030 and 44-89% by 2050. In all analysed scenarios, the sector’s emissions intensity declines rapidly, between 63-66% by 2030 and 82-100% by 2050 from 2019 level. The decline is mostly driven by high electrification rate of this sector and introduction of hydrogen and biofuels (particularly ethanol) in the fuel mix. The share of hydrogen and biofuel in the transport sector could reach 10-34% and 15-29% respectively by 2050 under different scenarios.
Primary energy consumption in India’s transport sector is completely dominated by fossil fuels (96% in 2020), mostly oil (93%). All scenarios show fossil energy demand declining from 96% in 2020, to 23% share by 2050. One of the scenarios shows a fossil fuel phase-out from the transport sector by 2050.
India has provided a strong policy push to expedite the penetration of electric vehicles (EV) by providing subsidies to reduce the upfront cost of buying an EV.24 It has set a target of 30% share of electric vehicles in new sales by 2030.25 The government is also working on plans to require all two-wheelers to be electric by 2026.26 The sales of electric scooters has already doubled since 2021.27 The use of alternative fuels is also getting a policy push: the government has mandated the blending of 20% ethanol in petrol by 2025.11
18PIK. The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series. (2021).
19 Dasgupta, S., Van Der Salm, F. & Roy, J. Designing PAT as a Climate Policy in India: Issues Learnt from EU-ETS. Nature, Econ. Soc. Underst. Linkages 315–328 (2016) doi:10.1007/978-81-322-2404-4_16.
23 Bhaskar, A., Assadi, M. & Somehsaraei, H. N. Decarbonization of the iron and steel industry with direct reduction of iron ore with green hydrogen. Energies 13, 1–23 (2020).
24 Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Notification G.S.R. 749(E). (2018).
28 While global cost-effective pathways assessed by the IPCC Special Report 1.5°C provide useful guidance for an upper-limit of emissions trajectories for developed countries, they underestimate the feasible space for such countries to reach net zero earlier. The current generation of models tend to depend strongly on land-use sinks outside of currently developed countries and include fossil fuel use well beyond the time at which these could be phased out, compared to what is understood from bottom-up approaches. The scientific teams which provide these global pathways constantly improve the technologies represented in their models – and novel CDR technologies are now being included in new studies focused on deep mitigation scenarios meeting the Paris Agreement. A wide assessment database of these new scenarios is not yet available; thus, we rely on available scenarios which focus particularly on BECCS as a net-negative emission technology. Accordingly, we do not yet consider land-sector emissions (LULUCF) and other CDR approaches.
29 The generation share was translated to approximate capacity shares based on an assumption of a similar split across technologies as the 175 GW target.
30 Analysed pathways assume the development of negative emissions technologies – BECCS – thus the year of zero emissions provided might be reached earlier than when 100% of the power mix is based from renewables and represent a ‘net zero emissions’ year.
31 Analysed pathways assume the development of negative emissions technologies – BECCS – thus the year of zero emissions provided might be reached earlier than when 100% of the power mix is based from renewables and represent a ‘net zero emissions’ year.