This paper analyses the past pattern of economic growth of India, energy use and carbon emission and examines to what extent India has been able to restrain the growth of her carbon emission and what factors have been responsible to what extent for such changes in CO2 emission. This analysis has been made for both the pre-economic reform and the post-economic reform period by using Decomposition Methods of Analysis. Taking clue from the results of such analysis, the paper further develops econometric models of future projection of energy related CO2
emissions for the alternative scenarios of GDP growth, energy pricing and technology development. The models are used to see how far it would be possible to make India’s economic growth low carbon in the time horizon up to 2031-32 and what policy approach would be appropriate to achieve that objective.