N.B. Nair
New Delhi (ISJ): India’s Science and Technology Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said on Friday (23 September), ‘decarbonising of cities and buildings should be the highest priority for the public and private sectors. Addressing a roundtable at the Global Clean Energy Action Forum-2022 at Pittsburgh in the United States, the minister said, decarbonising needs ‘to be done at scale, pace and by using an integrated and digitalised approach to bring systemic efficiency.'
What is a Carbon Neutral Building?
A Carbon Neutral or Zero Net Carbon (ZNC) building is defined as ‘a highly energy efficient building that produces on-site, or procures, through carbon-free renewable energy to meet building operations energy consumption annual.
World leaders at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris on 12 December 2015 reached a historic agreement known as Paris Agreement, which mandates inter alia, to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2 degrees Celsius, while pursuing efforts to limit it even further to 1.5 degrees.
A total of 194 countries, including the European Union have joined the agreement so far. The Paris Convention set a timeline for shifting to ZCBs for all new constructions by 2030 and all buildings by 2050.
Buildings and construction are central elements in the transition to a low-carbon future. In India, this sector emits about 22 percent of the total carbon emissions. The situation is expected to worsen, with an estimated shortage of 60 million houses.
Indian parliament’s lower house (Lok Sabha) passed the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Bill, 2022, amending the existing Energy Conservation Act 2001. The Bill seeks to promote energy efficiency and conservation and introduce an energy conservation code for buildings.
The code prescribes energy consumption standards in terms of area. The Bill amends this to provide for an ‘energy conservation and sustainable building code’. This new code will provide norms for energy efficiency and conservation, use of renewable energy, and other requirements for green buildings.
It also provides for the regulation of energy consumption by equipment and appliances.
The Bill meets the five points presented by New Delhi at the Conference of Parties (CoP26) to the United States Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference held at Glasgow in 2021.
It provides for deploying renewable energy sources, introducing a national carbon market, realising carbon trading, and authorising utilisation of non-fossil energy resources to achieve decarbonisation and Sustainable Development Goals as mandated by the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The amended bill is yet to become legislation, as the Upper House of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) has not ratified it so far.
As of now, there are a few buildings in India, which meet the benchmark of green or carbon neutral buildings.
- Kochi International Airport, Kerala
- Indira Paryavaran Bhavan, housing federal Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, New Delhi
- Suzlon Energy Limited, Pune
- Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre, Hyderabad
- ITC Grand Chola, Chennai
- Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad
- Action for Social Advancement (ASA), Bhopal
- Infinity, Kolkata
- Infosys, Mysuru
- Godrej Plant 13 Annexe, Mumbai
- CISCO Smart Campus, Bangalore
India’s Commitments
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated his commitment at the CoP 26 Glasgow Summit on 2 November 2021, to take five steps, Panchamrits (or five nectars) as he called to meet the challenges of global warming.
- First, India will take its non-fossil energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030.
- Second, India will meet 50 percent of its energy requirements from renewable sources by 2030.
- Third, India will reduce the total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes from now till 2030.
- Fourth, by 2030, India will reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by more than 45 percent.
- And fifth, by the year 2070, India will achieve the target of Net Zero.
“Today the whole world believes that India is the only big economy that has delivered in letter and spirit on the Paris Commitment. We are making every effort with determination, and we are working hard and showing results,” claimed Modi in his speech.
At the Plenary Session of CoP21 Summit in Paris on 1 December 2015, Modi said, India would add 175 Gigawatts (GW) of renewable generation by 2022 and enlarge the forest cover to absorb at least 2.5 billion tonnes worth of carbon dioxide.
But India was way behind the 2022 target for the generation of renewable energy.
Federal Power and New & Renewable Energy Minister Raj Kumar Singh told the lower house of Parliament that the production of energy from renewable sources by the end of June 2022 was only 1.69 GW.
There are several limitations in achieving the target of solar energy in India. Existing solar technology is inadequate for industrial use. Second, energy storage technology is far from efficient. Third, solar photovoltaic (SPV) cells are currently imported; China is the undisputed leader in the manufacture of SPV.
Huge investments are required in India to develop and manufacture SPVs and efficient battery on a large scale to bring down import dependency.
On the other hand, India’s forest cover has increased by 2,261 square kilometres in the last two years. Correspondingly, the total carbon stock is estimated to be 7,204 million tonnes, an increase of 79.4 million tonnes in the last two years with an annual increase of 39.7 tonnes, states India’s Forest Survey Report 2021.
India’s Climate and Development Challenges
India faces enormous challenges in decoupling economic growth and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. First, India requires to create millions of new jobs, increase incomes, and improve public health in the next few decades.
“India’s youth constitute about one-third of its 1.38-billion population, and one-third of them remain unemployed at any given time (the prevailing youth unemployment rate is 32 percent). Moreover, four-fifths of its existing workforce of 500 million people are employed in the informal sector. Therefore, any low-carbon transition effort must generate job opportunities while also finding alternative livelihoods for the jobs lost in the fossil-fuel-dependent industries that are expected to decline,” reads an article by Easwaran Narassimhan and two others for Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a private-funded think-tank.
India’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) however, does not bind it to any sector-specific mitigation obligation or action. “India’s goal is to reduce overall emission intensity and improve the energy efficiency of its economy over time and at the same time protecting the vulnerable sectors of economy and segments of our society,” reads a press release on the federal cabinet’s decision on NDC.
While the proportion of thermal power capacity decreased in the country in recent years, its full potential for renewable has not been achieved.
India’s current market share in critical clean energy technologies remains well under its potential. It accounts for 10 percent of the global market for solar, 5 percent for wind, and 1 percent for battery storage.
In order to achieve the commitment of decarbonised or net zero world, India’s share should increase to 30 percent of global solar, 15 percent of wind, and 12 percent of battery market.
“The net zero will also bring notable benefits for the people. The transition will see a net increase in employment opportunities, creating as many as 15 million jobs beyond a baseline scenario by 2047, reads a report by Asia Society Policy Institute Report ‘Getting India to Net Zero.” It says Indian households could save as much as $9.7 billion in energy costs by 2060.
Former Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd, former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Arvind Panagariya, former Vice Chairman of NITI Ayog, and Vivek Pathak, Director of Climate Business at International Finance Corporation were members of the High-Level Policy Commission that prepared the report.
But all these come at a huge cumulative investment of $10.1 trillion by 2030!
Image: Indira Paryavaran Bhavan, New Delhi
