Opinion The first cuts

Under the Bali action plan,developing countries are required to take Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions with financial and technical assistance.

KiritSParikh

December 1, 2009 02:22 AM IST First published on: Dec 1, 2009 at 02:22 AM IST

Under the Bali action plan,developing countries are required to take Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions with financial and technical assistance.

In the climate change negotiations India,as the articulate leader of the G77 group of 77 developing countries is seen as an obstacle as it refuses to accept any verifiable mitigation obligation. The Indian negotiators are frustrated that even when we are doing a lot to reduce our emissions it is not appreciated while China,which emits as much as five times our total emissions seems to get good press internationally. Obviously,we are not doing a good job of communicating what we are doing. Should India take some mitigation commitments? If so,what price or what quid pro quo should we demand?

I argue here that there are many things we have to do for our own energy security that can be accelerated and can qualify as mitigation obligation. This could be a win-win possibility provided the rich countries take on deep cuts and compensate us for the additional cost of acceleration. These include the following:

 Dedicated railway freight corridors to increase share of railways in freight traffic by 10 percentage points by 2020

 Increase the average efficiency of coal based power plants from 30.5 per cent to 33.5 per cent by 2020

 Improve fuel efficiency of four wheeled vehicle fleet by 20 per cent by 2020

 Double the number of buses/person in urban areas by 2020

 Install solar water heaters in 50 million homes by 2020

All these are doable,very desirable for our energy security and can save significant quantities of GHG emissions. I elaborate below:

Dedicated Railway Freight Corridors

A tonne-km of goods traffic carried by trucks use four times as much diesel as when it is moved by rails even when railways run on diesel. In 2006-07 the total goods movement by road and rail was 1250 billion tonne kilometers (btkm). The railways share has come down from more than 80 per cent in the 1950s to around 38-40 per cent around which it has stabilised over the past few years. By 2020 our freight movement would be around 3000btkm. If railways share increases by 10 percentage points,then 300 btkm of freight traffic would move from road to rails. The amount of diesel saved per year would be 6 to 10 million tonnes. This would mean a reduction of 18 to 30 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.

Efficiency of Coal Based Power Plants

On September 30,2009 Indias installed capacity of coal based power plants was 80000 MW out of a total capacity of 152000 MW. The energy efficiency of coal use is around 30.5 per cent. The state of the art plants in Germany run with efficiency of 46 per cent. Since the ambient air temperature in India is higher than in Germany,we cannot get the same efficiency,but we can surely get around 40 per cent. We can ensure that all our new plants attain an efficiency of at least 38 per cent. We will need to add at least 80000 MW,if not more,of coal based power plants by 2020. This will give us an average efficiency of coal use in power plants of about 34.5 per cent as the new plants would generate more than the old ones. This will reduce our coal consumption by more than 70 million tonnes per year and our CO2 emissions by more than 110 million tonnes per year.

Improve Four Wheel Vehicles Fuel Efficiency

In 2006 there were in India around 17 million four wheel motor vehicles,cars,buses and trucks. The fuel consumption of these vehicles was around 30 mt. The number of vehicles is growing rapidly and by 2020 if the acceleration continues we may have around 70 million vehicles. Consuming at the same rate and efficiency,the fuel consumption would be more than 125 mt in 2020. A 20 per cent increase in efficiency will save 25 mt of petrol and diesel and reduce emissions of CO2 by 75 mt.

Increase Number of Buses

In 2008 a little more than 100000 buses served some 1150 million people in India providing public transport. Some 500 billion passenger kilo metres (pkm) were provided by these buses,which consumed some 1.85 mt of diesel. With a projected population of about 1400 million in 2020 and the same bus/person ratio we can expect 125000 buses consuming 2.25 mt of diesel and serving 600 billion pkm. Doubling the availability of buses per person we can attract more people to travel by bus rather than private vehicles. If we can double the travel by bus to 1200 billion pkm,and if we assume that travel by private vehicle would consume 0.025 litres per pkm,the net saving of petroleum products (petrol saved – additional diesel consumed by buses) would be 19 mt per year and reduction in emission of CO2 of some 55 mt per year.

50 Million Solar Water Heaters

Pillai and Bannerjee of IIT -B have estimated a saving of 1300 kwhr per year with a water heater of 2 square meters collector area. 50 million water heaters will save 65 billion units of electricity per year at the consumer end and some 95 billion units of generation. This will save some 65 mt of coal per year. The saving in CO2 emissions would be around 100 mt per year.

These measures together thus can save more than 350 mt of CO2 per year.

 20 mt from dedicated railway freight corridors

 100 mt from higher efficiency of coal plants

 75 mt from improved efficiency of motor vehicles

 55 mt by doubling bus density

 100 mt by 50 million solar water heaters

This would be around 16 per cent of our current emissions and 10 per cent of our projected emissions by 2020 assuming they will continue to increase at 4 per cent per year.

India can offer to take these commitments provided we are compensated for the additional expenditure involved and provided the Annex 1 countries accept deep cuts. By deep cuts I mean 30 per cent reduction by 2020,50 per cent by 2030 and 80 per cent by 2050 over their 1990 emissions.

The writer,former member of the planning commission,is chairman of Integrated Research and Action for Development (IRADe)