Pathways to decarbonize passenger transportation: Implications to India’s climate budget

There is a lack of studies on assessing long-term impacts of different sectors on shrinking global carbon budget. Present study focuses on assessing contribution of electric vehicles (EVs) with improving electricity grids’ efficiency (EGs) and minimizing ‘transmission and distribution’ (T&D) losses in reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and fulfilling emission targets for 2030 and 2050. Eleven different scenarios are articulated with estimated uncertainties for Mumbai Metropolitan Regions’ (MMRs’) passenger transportation using data extracted from MMR’s Comprehensive Mobility Plan’s transportation model. A novel methodology is developed to estimate local carbon budget targets from global targets between 2018 and 2050. The estimations indicate that carbon emissions in ‘business as usual’ scenario are 252%, 505%, and 55% above the targets for 2 °C, 1.5 °C, and Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC), respectively. Study also shows that introducing EVs in MMR without simultaneously improving EGs will generate more net CO2 emissions than BAU. EVs with EG and T&D improvements are not enough to meet the estimated targets. However, their combined contribution significantly reduces CO2 emission by half and reaches peak emission by 2025 from post-half-century.