Bhutan National Strategy and Action Plan for Low Carbon Development, 2012

The National Strategy and Action Plan for Low-Carbon Development was prepared to enable Bhutan to fulfill its commitment of remaining carbon neutral. The strategy is comprised of various scenarios analyzing development paths from 2005 till 2040. As a supplement to the scenarios, the action plan presents a number of short- and medium-term interventions to achieve sustainable economic development through green growth. The analysis starts by defining a baseline, i.e. development path under a business-as-usual regime. It also made projections on a sectoral basis. Emissions are broadly categorized as energy-related (residential, commercial, and industrial energy consumption, as well as transport) and non-energy-related (industrial processes, agriculture, land use and forestry, and municipal waste) emissions. Reduction in the energy-related emissions can be achieved by improving the energy efficiency of appliances producing energy services and/or by changing the source of final energy from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Three different scenarios of energy related emissions have been analyzed to show the possible impact of energy efficiency and renewable energy on the emission levels. Scenarios were not developed for non-energy-related carbon emissions due to lack of sufficient data and time.