Economic Growth and Carbon Emissions in India: An Analysis of the Changing Carbon Intensity of the Economy

Abstract

In this working paper I have empirically studied whether India’s carbon intensity has declined with the economic growth in the 2000-2024 period based on the World Bank data. Descriptive statistics, Tapio decoupling elasticity, stationarity diagnostic and time-trend regressions with HAC standard errors are employed to show that real gross domestic product increased by 328.98%, CO2 emissions increased by 216.37% and carbon intensity decreased by 26.25%. The total decoupling elasticity of 0.6577 indicates that the decoupling is weak (relative), but the absolute emissions are still increasing. Results show progress in reducing energy intensity, but absolute emissions remain far above the starting point.