India’s Net Zero 2070 Trajectory: A Geospatial Analysis a Multisectoral and Spatial Policy Assessment

Abstract

India’s Net Zero 2070 Trajectory: A Geospatial Analysis undertakes a multisectoral and spatially differentiated assessment of the feasibility of India’s long-term decarbonization commitment. Framed through a refined Geospatially Differentiated Just Transition Model (GDJTM) and a geospatially extended Kaya Identity, the paper interrogates how mitigation elasticity varies across energy, industry, transport, and land-use systems, and how these sectoral pathways intersect with regional disparities in resource endowments, institutional capacity, and just transition needs. Drawing on recent evidence for baseline emissions growth, peak-year sensitivity under alternative NDC intensification scenarios, and the spatial distribution of emission hotspots, the analysis highlights a pronounced mismatch between coal-dependent production zones in Central and Eastern India and high-renewable transition corridors in the West and South. Particular attention is given to financing architecture, cost-of-capital differentials, macroeconomic multipliers, and the political economy of coal phase-down. The study argues that Net Zero feasibility hinges on region-specific transition compacts that sequence technological deployment, fiscal realignment, and social protection in a spatially targeted and globally competitive manner. It concludes that a geospatially explicit, justice-centred planning architecture—combining advanced earth observation, integrated assessment modelling, and spatially differentiated climate finance—is indispensable if India is to compress its mitigation window between 2040 and 2070 without compromising developmental imperatives.