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India emerging as a climate performer by cutting down on its emissions

RISING SUN

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India emerging as a climate performer by cutting down on its emissions
India has been quietly emerging as climate performer cutting down on its emissions. India’s emissions will rise only by 2 percent to 2.5 giga tonnes compared to 6.7percent in 2016, according to the 2017 Global Carbon Budget report, published in Nature Climate Change, Environmental Research Letters, and Earth System Science Data Discussions on Monday.

Aggressive and proactive interventions by government and the rapid progress made by India in installation of solar energy capacity contributed to the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by India. But the economic slowdown, and policies like demonetization and introduction of GST too have a role to play.

The report, however, this massive drop in the amount of carbon dioxide emissions produced is also a reflection of reduced exports, declining share of industrial and agricultural production in GDP, reduced consumer demand, and a sudden fall in money circulation attributable to demonetization late in 2016, and a goods and services tax introduced in 2017.

If Indian economy bounces back soon, as the government expects it to, then emission growth in 2018 is expected to be around 5%. Reducing the level of carbon dioxide produced by the economy will require additional interventions.

The 2017 Global Carbon Budget report states that global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and industrial use is likely to increase by 2 per cent compared to last year. This ends a three year period of almost zero growth that could be attributed to economic slowdown in countries like China, and a slower than expected recovery in the United States and Europe.

In 2017, global carbon dioxide emissions from all human activities (fossil fuels, industry and land-use change) will reach around 41 billion tonnes, a growth of 2 percent. Fossil fuel burning and industrial use account for nearly 80 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions by human activities. The third big contributor comes from changes in land use such as deforestation.

This year’s rise in global emissions can be attributed to a 3.5 per cent projected increase in the emissions of China, and relatively lower reductions in the United States and the European Union compared to last year. China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, followed by the United States, European Union, and India.

“The return to growth in global emissions in 2017 is largely due to a return to growth in Chinese emissions, projected to grow by 3.5 per cent in 2017 after two years with declining emissions. The use of coal, the main fuel source in China, may rise by 3 per cent due to stronger growth in industrial production and lower hydro-power generation due to less rainfall,” Glen Peters, research director at CICERO in Oslo and one of the lead authors of the study, said in a statement.

“Several factors point to a continued rise in 2018,” said Robert Jackson, a co-author of the report, co-chair of GCP and a professor in Earth system science at Stanford University. “That’s a real concern. The global economy is picking up slowly. As GDP rises, we produce more goods, which, by design, produces more emissions.”

However, the team of scientists who worked on the report said that it is too early to say whether the rise in emissions in 2017 is a one-off event on the way to a global peak in emissions, or the beginning of a new period with up- ward pressure on global emissions growth.

In the long term, emissions are unlikely to return to the persistent high growth rates seen during the 2000s of over 3 per cent per year. It is more likely that emissions will plateau or have slight positive growth, broadly in line with national emission pledges submitted to the Paris Agreement.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...m_referrer=https://www.google.co.in/&from=mdr
 
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New Delhi Air is ten times worse the Beijing and United has cancelled flights

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Citing toxic smog that one official said has turned India’s capital city into a “gas chamber,” United Airlines has canceled flights to New Delhi until the air gets better.

New Delhi’s air quality is consistently ranked among the world’s worst. But a perfect storm of problems is exacerbating the problem to potentially deadly levels. Farmers who have recently harvested crops in neighboring states are illegally burning their fields, sending smoke into the air. Construction projects and pollution from vehicles in a city that lacks adequate public transportation are making things worse.

This week, the smog was 10 times worse than reigning pollution champion Beijing, where air-quality problems have reached Olympic proportions. Some parts of New Delhi have pollution 40 times the World Health Organization-recommended safe level.
People huddled indoors with expensive air purifiers, indoor plants and closed windows.

But doctors say it won’t be enough to prevent some deaths in the city of 20 million people. Children are the most vulnerable.

The air is equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes per day or over 2 packs a day.

The air quality index – on which anything over 100 is considered unhealthy – hit the severe level of 451 – and in parts of the city some monitors even recorded levels off the scale – over 999.

On an annual average there are cities in Iran and India that are worse than Delhi.


https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/...beijing-and-united-has-cancelled-flights.html
 
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Perfect timing.

Evidence is clear to test such claims.
India Plans World’s Largest Solar Power Tender — 20 Gigawatts

It is perhaps the worry of missing the ambitious renewable energy target that the Indian government has floated the idea of launching the world’s largest solar power tender.

According to media reports, the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy is planning to auction off 20 gigawatts of solar power capacity in one go. The final details of the proposed auction are still being deliberated upon, however, the aim is to spur domestic solar modules production as well as further reduce the cost of solar power.

Despite the ambitious targets and supportive policies, India has lagged in solar power capacity addition. The country plans to have an installed solar power capacity of 100 gigawatts by March 2022. The installed capacity as of 30 September 2017 was just over 14.7 gigawatts. So, it needs to add an additional 85 gigawatts in the remaining four years and six months.

While a substantial amount of capacity is already in the pipeline, a larger quantity has yet to be allocated. To achieve the 100 gigawatts target, India will have to add around 1.6 gigawatts every month between October 2017 and March 2022. India has never seen such growth in its solar, or any other renewable energy technology. Between April and September of 2017, India managed to add just 2.5 gigawatts of solar power capacity, or just 413 megawatts per month.

Initially, the government had planned to set up 40 gigawatts of the 100 gigawatts from rooftop solar power systems. Realizing that the rooftop market does not enjoy the penetration and financial benefits that the utility-scale projects have, the government circled back to utility-scale solar power projects. It increased the target for capacity addition through solar power parks from 20 gigawatts to 40 gigawatts.

The 20 gigawatt tender being talked about will likely be under this solar power parks scheme itself. Several state governments have already identified land to set up a cumulative 20 gigawatts of capacity and the Solar Energy Corporation of India will auction these projects in the near future. Work on the additional 20 gigawatts of solar power parks may soon come to fruition.

While details of the tender will emerge in the due course of time, the projects auctioned will likely be commissioned in phases. The largest solar power tender launched in India to date had a capacity of 2 gigawatts.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/11/13/india-plans-worlds-largest-solar-power-tender-20-gigawatts/
 
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