Recent studies analyzing India’s decarbonisation efforts using external data do not confirm the achievements stated in India’s country reports submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Convention. The role of economic structure changes compared to energy intensity in driving India’s carbon dioxide emissions also differs across studies using different data sources. In this paper, the difference in the country-reported data and the data published by International Energy Agency (IEA) is studied, and its implications on India’s progress in meeting its mitigation goals are examined. This study finds that the main difference between the two data sources is the estimates of emissions from the manufacturing and construction sectors. As per country data, India’s carbon dioxide emission intensity of industrial production during 2007-14 has declined by 7%. However, as per IEA data, it has increased by 10%. The country data shows that sector-level energy intensity effect has put downward pressure on emissions in this period. However, the IEA data shows that only the structural changes in the economy have pushed India’s carbon dioxide emissions downwards in 2007-14. These findings have implications on the effectiveness of India’s mitigation strategies in promoting energy-efficient technologies, particularly in industrial production.
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