Research Trends of Carbon Market Research in India: A Bibliometric Analysis (1999–2025)

Abstract

The present study analyses the growth, conceptual structure, thematic evolution, and international collaboration of carbon market research in India from 1999 to 2025. A total of 864 documents retrieved from Dimensions were retained for analysis. Bibliometric analysis was performed using the Biblioshiny interface in R to compute annual scientific production, average citations per year, the most relevant sources, source local impact, country scientific production, Bradford's Law, co-word networks, thematic mapping, factorial analysis, thematic evolution, and international collaboration networks. The results show a marked increase in annual production, from single digits in the early 2000s to 162 documents in 2025, with 38.4% of the cumulative output produced from 2023 to 2025. Energy Policy was the leading peer-reviewed source by local impact (h-index = 22; 1,483 citations), while SSRN Electronic Journal had the highest volume (50 documents; 233 citations). Kumar A. had the highest number of articles, whereas Tiwari G. had the highest number of citations across all articles. The co-word network and thematic map revealed five conceptual clusters covering forestry, carbon sequestration and monitoring, general carbon or conservation, emissions, and a smaller solar-energy theme. Thematic evolution revealed a merger of the climate-change and forestry themes in 2024–2025, resulting in the emergence of a carbon-sequestration/environmental-monitoring theme. The most central nodes in the collaboration network were India and the USA, with India–USA representing the strongest bilateral collaboration (24 co-authored documents), followed by India–Germany and India–China (10 each). These patterns reveal thematic areas within India's research base that may help address the monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) needs of its compliance carbon market. Continued investment in India's local research capacity and international research cooperation, particularly with the USA and Germany, may support the successful implementation of the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme.