Breaking the projected trend (Delhi) - Transport Climate Change and the City - page 182

Figure 5.4 Traffic growth in Delhi. The potential traffic growth in Delhi could be huge - the very challenging
task is to break the trend.
high. In aggregate terms, India is the world's fourth largest CO2 emitting country, after China,
the USA, and Russia (International Energy Agency, 2010b).
The choice confronting India represents the classic dilemma for the emerging countries in
Asia, and indeed South America and Africa. The choice is over what levels of 'development'
should be encouraged at the individual and national levels (including in income levels and
economic growth), but at the same time providing this in an inclusive way, and through not
adversely impacting the environment. Development is of course multi-dimensional, and it
includes wide-ranging objectives as encapsulated in the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs). 2 The recent climate change issues have given an added impetus to the debate, with
trend-breaking futures now required to help mitigate the likely impacts of global warming.
The greatest adverse impacts, perversely, are likely to occur in those countries which have
polluted least in historical terms. Again, the developing world gets the raw deal.
This chapter takes the problems of rapid traffic growth in Asia as its context and considers
the possibilities for development within India, using the case study of Delhi. It is largely based
on work carried out for the Asian Development Bank. 3 A baseline and projection for transport
CO2 emissions are developed to 2030, and consideration is given to appropriate future levels
of emissions, with 'global equity' being used as the basis for target development. Scenario
analysis is then used to develop different potential futures for transport in Delhi and a clear
pathway towards sustainable transport is described.