Every country is supposed to provide its national climate action plan, or intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs), ahead of the United Nations-sponsored climate summit inParis in December. Senior government officials indicated that India will submit its plan to the UN climate secretariat "as soon as possible," suggesting that it could be earlier than September.

India will pledge to reduce the carbon emission intensity of its economy, or the amount of carbon dioxide produced for every dollar of GDP, by a specific target by 2030. New Delhi will include in its pledge a qualitative description of the measures it will take to meet the target. In doing so, it will set aside earlier plans of providing quantitative targets for each of the measures it proposes to take to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions over five or 10 years beginning 2020.

The range of emission intensity reduction is yet to be determined. Dispelling questions about whether New Delhi would be aggressive in setting its target, a senior official involved in the preparation of the national climate plan said, "India's contribution will be ambitious but achievable." New Delhi's contribution would include descriptive mention of the renewable energy push, planned afforestation efforts, and the cess on coal and its use for research and development of clean technologies and other efforts that would help meet the emission intensity reduction target.

At Copenhagen in 2009, and then again in Cancun in 2010, India had voluntarily pledged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions for every unit of economic output by 20% to 25% from 2005 levels by 2050. The Planning Commission-appointed Expert Group on Low Carbon Strategies for Inclusive Growth, set up in January 2010 following the Copenhagen talks, said in its final report of April 2014 that with an 8% to 9% rate of economic growth, India can take measures to effect a reduction of 42% in emission intensity from 2007 levels. A recent study led by Navroz Dubash of the Centre for Policy Research analyses seven recent India-focused modelling studies that cover carbon dioxide emissions from the energy and industry sectors until 2030 and finds that emission intensity reduction, depending on the assumptions, can range between 40% and 64% from 2005 levels by 2030.

The environment ministry had commissioned three projection studies on India's emission profiles, which were conducted by Teri (The Energy and Resources Institute), Integrated Research for Action (IRADe) and Development and the Bengaluru-based Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP). A senior official involved in the planning process said, "These studies have provided a range of scenarios and we have been consulting with ministries, states and other stakeholders to determine what the target range of the reduction should be."

The decision not to provide a detailed and comprehensive climate action plan is driven in part by the submissions made by other countries, particularly major economies. Till date, 47 countries have submitted their climate action plans to the UN climate secretariat,United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ( UNFCCC). The major economies like the United States, China, and European Union have provided specific targets for relative and absolute reductions in carbon dioxide pollution but no detail for finance and technology or even specific sectors. "The trend has been to provide top line reductions. We have been undertaking detailed consultations but given the trend, we are thinking in terms of a top line contribution as well," an official involved in the exercise explained.

The other factor that has led to this decision is to avoid locking into pledges. Much of India's infrastructure is yet to be built, it has embarked on an aggressive and ambitious "make in India" manufacturing programme, and a "smart cities" programme. Providing detailed and comprehensive commitments as part of its action plan would mean locking to commitments. Many in government and experts see this as a move that could limit India's actions. "India has always taken its international commitments seriously. It is no different with the INDCs. While our plan will be ambitious, we don't want to limit our options," an official explained.

Senior government officials said the final rounds of consultation were being completed. "We would like to submit the INDCs as soon as possible. But how soon will depend on the approval process," a senior government official said. Given that the INDCs are in the nature of international commitments, the final climate action plan might require Cabinet approval, which would mean a round of inter-ministerial consultations before the Cabinet takes it up. "We will have to check past practice. Accordingly, we will seek approval of the plans," an official explained.

As agreed at the previous round of UN-sponsored climate negotiations in Lima in December last year, the plans are supposed to set out the amount of reduction in carbon dioxide that each country would ensure. Though not mandatory, countries could also spell out plans for adapting to climate change and a commitment of the amount of money and kind of technological support that would be provided to developing countries to help tackle climate change.

India had earlier indicated that its climate action plan would be a detailed one, providing enumerated efforts for carbon dioxide reduction and adapting to climate change. New Delhi had indicated that it would fix two sets of goals—one that can be achieved solely on domestic resources and another that would require international support in terms of finance and technology.