Incineration of entire 358 tonnes of toxic waste from the defunct Union Carbide factory finally concluded as contaminated soil and packaging material were burnt at a disposal plant in Madhya Pradesh's Pithampur on Thursday, over six months after the consignment was brought to the unit.
Asserting that the world does not have much time to correct the mistakes of the last century, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday announced a 'Green Credit Initiative' focused on creating carbon sinks through people's participation and also proposed to host the United Nations climate conference in 2028, or COP33, in India.
'The E20 usage accrues the huge benefit to the nation, to the society, to the farmer, to the environment, to the exchequer and all of us'
Some Twitter users expressed concern over the potential carbon emissions associated with chartered flights
Fuelled by rising passenger traffic and reviving local economies, the global airline industry is projected to record a net profit of $9.8 billion this year, IATA Director General Willie Walsh said on Monday and also made a strong pitch for having global standards for a Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) book and claim system to help reduce carbon emissions. While addressing the Annual General Meeting of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) here, Walsh also flagged concerns about supply chain issues that are raising costs as well as limiting the ability of airlines to deploy aircraft. He also pointed out that decarbonising aviation is a serious issue and governments must not be allowed to use it to shore up exchequer finances.
He said that energy will be the first chapter to be addressed.
Mahindra & Mahindra on Thursday said it has tied up with a unit of Adani Total Gas to establish electric vehicle charging infrastructure across the country. The auto major and Adani Total Energies E-Mobility Ltd (ATEL) have inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in this regard. The MoU sets a roadmap for the creation of an expansive EV charging infrastructure across the country, it added.
Uttam Ghosh -- like most leaders at the COP26 summit in Glasgow -- is surprised at India's pledge to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2070.
Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) will hold discussions with the Centre and state governments on how the production of compressed biogas (CBG), which can be used in vehicles that run on compressed natural gas (CNG), can be expanded in the country, its majority shareholder Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) said. The demand for CNG vehicles has been rising significantly in the country. MSIL sold 145,000 CNG vehicles in the first quarter of 2024-25, marking a 28.3 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth.
Rajesh Karkera/Rediff.com takes his car for a spin on Mumbai's brand-new coastal road and comes away awestruck.
Four big global companies - Bayer, GenZero (a wholly-owned arm of financial major Temasek), Shell and Mitsubishi - have decided to scale up their carbon credit programme in nine states to empower farmers. The credits are generated through the adoption of smart agriculture practices - Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) and Direct Seeded Rice (DSR). Since over a year, the project, which was being run on a pilot basis, has positively impacted 10,000 farmers, covering more than 25,000 hectares.
Lionel Plasmans, who owns the farm, said it was an honour to be providing potatoes to the Olympics.
Adani Group has commissioned India's first off-grid 5 megawatt green hydrogen pilot plant in Kutch, Gujarat, the conglomerate said.
iPhone maker Apple has met its replenishment target for freshwater withdrawals for corporate operations in India in 2023, the company said in its environmental progress report released on Wednesday. Globally, Apple has set a goal to replenish 100 per cent of corporate freshwater withdrawals in high-stress locations by 2030.
The RBI on Friday said maiden Sovereign Green Bonds (SGrBs) would be issued in two tranches for an aggregate amount of Rs 16,000 crore, and proceeds will be utilised for funding public sector projects seeking to reduce carbon emissions. The first auction would be done on January 25 while the second on February 9, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in a statement. The proceeds will be deployed in public sector projects, which help in reducing the carbon intensity of the economy, it said.
India decided to cut down its carbon emission intensity by 20-25 per cent by 2020 in the run up to the Copenhagen summit, shortly after a similar declaration by China.
With ICT, there is a need to re-look at traditional models of business management, says Narayana Murthy.
Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday unveiled the prototype of the world's first Bharat Stage (BS)-VI-compliant electrified flex-fuel car, developed by Toyota Kirloskar Motor. The car, which runs on 100 per cent ethanol (E100), is based on the Toyota Innova HyCross. It can cover 40 per cent of its distance on ethanol and the remaining 60 per cent on electric, with the petrol engine shut off.
Though the civil aviation sector accounts for only two per cent of the global carbon emission, the industry has conducted sufficient research on the usage of alternative fuels, from the prospective of both environment and cost.
Presenting the Union Budget, Sitharaman announced that the government will partner with the private sector to set up Bharat Small Reactors and in the research and development of small modular reactors.
India rose two spots to rank eighth out of 63 countries in the Climate Change Performance Index 2023 (CCPI). In the Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Energy Use categories, the country was rated "high". In the Climate Policy and Renewable Energy categories, it earned a "medium" rating.
'Geopolitically and diplomatically it's a very difficult situation for India.'
Coal-based generators plan upgrades, clean tech over 5 years.
The World Bank on Friday approved a $80-million loan for the renovation and modernisation of old, polluting and inefficient coal-fired power plants in India, in a move that could help lower carbon emissions.
Opposition members in Rajya Sabha on Thursday accused the government of imposing Hindi by bringing new bills with titles only in that language, a charge the treasury bench contested while alleging they were stuck with a colonial mindset.
India's leading steel companies hope the Modi 3.0 Budget will continue the massive capital expenditure currently underway, focusing on infrastructure development, manufacturing, and fair trade. The infrastructure segment is the largest steel user, and the government's focus has fuelled steel consumption even as international markets have underperformed. According to provisional statistics, steel consumption grew 13.6 per cent in FY24, reaching 136 million tonnes (mt), according to a CRISIL report.
'With the deployment of a higher degree of mechanisation, awarding contractual mining to MDOs and operational efficiency, we feel confident of achieving the desired target.'
Spurs, Liverpool top eco-friendly table
'The intensity and frequency of heatwaves will be much higher than in previous years over Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.'
Coordination between defence and civilian authorities has freed up airspace for commercial airlines in India, resulting in routes becoming shorter and costs coming down, apart from mitigating pollution. "Due to various restrictions of the military, only about 58 per cent of the Indian airspace was being utilised. It is close to 70 per cent now," said an official of the Airports Authority of India (AAI). Officials of the AAI said to date 119 routes had been shortened. Sources said since December 2020 the cumulative savings of airlines had been close to Rs 200 crore while there was a reduction in emission of around 45,000 tonnes of carbon.
The budget underscores government's previous emphasis on capex to sustain near-term recovery from the pandemic, while simultaneously paving the way for longer-term restructuring of the economy, it stated. But the various spending initiatives are not offset by any significant announcements related to further increase revenue generation; rather, the announced revenue-related measures are aimed at other objectives such as fostering startup innovation, ensuring more equitable treatment for cooperatives and state employees, and promoting tax compliance through simplification, Christian de Guzman, a senior vice-president, sovereign risk group, Moody's Investors Service, said.
Modi's unexpected announcement of achieving net zero by 2070 may have neatly deflected the pressures on India to sign up to an ambitious pledge but it does nothing to dispel the ecological emergency that threatens all life on the planet, , points out former forerign secretary Shyam Saran, the prime minister's special envoy and chief negotiator on climate change 2007-2010.
Tata Steel UK is reformatting its operations in Port Talbot by investing 1.25 billion in an electric arc furnace facility with the UK government contributing 500 million. The project will take around three years to complete, if all the regulatory clearances come through. The facility will use scrap and be classified as green since it will utilise renewable power and cut carbon emissions considerably.
'Each cyclone has its own identity and its own behaviour based on the environmental conditions in the ocean and in the atmosphere.'
Thotakura was selected as one of the six crew members for the mission, making him the first Indian space tourist and the second Indian to venture into space after the Indian Army's Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma in 1984.
In Budget 2015, the finance minister has opted to take the slow road and has doubled the cess on coal to "balance the need to tax pollution and the price of power" in his words.
Given India's reliance on coal, electric vehicles could at best be 10% more efficient than petrol in terms of CO2 savings.
German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz is considering assembling more electric vehicles at its plant in India not merely to gain cost advantage but also to meet its zero emission mobility and carbon neutral setup goals, according to a senior company official. Mercedes-Benz India, which currently assembles its flagship electric luxury sedan EQS at its Chakan unit, is considering localisation of other models depending on demand.
While India is pushed to keep a tight lid on its own carbon emissions, slow and low emission reduction by major polluters will cause an acceleration of climate change, says Rajni Bakshi.
Carbon credits are a tradable permit scheme. They provide a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by giving them a monetary value.
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