Air quality index (AQI) soared past 350 level in parts of Delhi on Thursday and experts cautioned that as weather turns colder it may breach the 400-mark ceiling and enter the 'severe' zone soon, notwithstanding the incidents of stubble burnings which have nosedived from 17,529 in 2020 to 4,262 this year.
If I were to explain stealth to a layperson, I'd ask them to think of the game chupan-chupai (hide and seek) we played as children, explains Air Commodore Nitin Sathe (retd).
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.
According to the report by Swiss firm IQAir released on Tuesday, India's annual average PM2.5 level in 2022 was 53.3 g/m3, slightly lower than the 2021 average of 58.1.
The Delhi government has announced that vehicles older than 15 years will be denied fuel at petrol pumps starting April 1.
'Battery electric, hydrogen fuel cell and hydrogen ICE, could be the three technologies which have the potential of being zero emission and that are what we will have to work on,'
The country's biggest carmaker, Maruti Suzuki India, has raised concerns about the continuing slide in small car sales.
'There is no linkage as far as the Indian power-generating business is concerned.'
Asserting that it has been a strong champion of equity, India on Thursday said developed countries should compensate developing nations for the effects their greenhouse gas emissions have had on climate.
'Two would be premium products and three would be mainstream products.'
Passenger and commercial vehicle prices are expected to rise as automobile companies invest in upgrading vehicles to meet stricter emission norms that kick in from April next year. The Indian automobile industry is currently working to make their products meet the second phase of Bharat Stage VI, equivalent to Euro-VI emission norms, in real time driving conditions. Four-wheeler passenger and commercial vehicles will need more sophisticated equipment to be added to meet the next level of emission standards.
'The intensity and frequency of heatwaves will be much higher than in previous years over Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.'
Three years after India declared its goal to become a net-zero economy by 2070, the policy design for achieving the target has begun, with the NITI Aayog forming dedicated multi-sectoral committees to prepare a transition plan. In 2021, India joined a select group of nations that set a target year for becoming net-zero carbon economy. At COP26 in Glasgow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi outlined a five-pronged 'Panchamitra' climate action target for India and committed to a net-zero target by 2070, joining nations like the US, the UK, and China.
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.
Ramesh expressed deep concern about the US offer to reduce carbon emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels.
'At present, hybrids emit lesser carbon despite using fuel than pure play electric cars.' 'That is because EVs have to be charged and 76 per cent of the country's electricity is still coal-based and not renewables.'
'We are not asking for incentives, but at least taxation can be aligned such that the rupee tax on consumers remains the same.'
EU operates as one block at the climate change negotiations and takes a single greenhouse gas emission reduction target under the Paris Agreement
India's JSW Steel has been awarded more than 5.4 million carbon credits, including four million carbon credits in the single largest issuance of emissions permits to a Kyoto Protocol project, by the United Nations.
In mid-May, the European Commission released 2009 data showing carbon emission in the region had fallen 11 per cent over last year, to 1.873 billion tonnes.
Amidst growing concern that India and the United States are on a collision course over reduction of carbon emissions in the run-up to the climate change conference in Copenhagen later this year, India's Ambassador to the US, Meera Shankar said that for a country like India with a severe energy shortage, absolute reductions of emissions is extremely challenging and well nigh impossible.
In a significant development, India's National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange Limited on Thursday launched its futures contract for Certified Emission Reduction. Forward Markets Commission, chairman, B. C. Khatua inaugurated the launch at NCDEX Exchange Platform. The CER contract of NCDEX will be traded in multiples of one lot of 500 CERs each.
At the grand global policy-making level, the Indian government is heatedly arguing with the developed world over its share of stringent new carbon emission reductions.
The Maryland House of Delegates has passed major legislation authored by Majority Leader Kumar Barve--the longest-serving Indian American legislator--to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state.
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) on Monday said it has received 10,722 emission reduction certificates from the United Nations for a waste heat recovery project at its Mumbai High fields.
'It will take some more time because the affordability of these cars have changed drastically.'
The United States, India and China are not in favor of accepting a legally binding agreement.
Petrol doped with 20 per cent ethanol was rolled out on Monday at select petrol pumps in 11 states and union territories as part of a programme to increase use of biofuels to cut emissions as well as dependence on foreign exchange-draining imports. At present, 10 per cent ethanol is blended in petrol (10 per cent ethanol, 90 per cent petrol) and the government is looking to double this quantity by 2025. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the higher 20 per cent ethanol blended petrol two months ahead of the planned rollout in April, at the India Energy Week (IEW) 2023 in Bengaluru.
Global demand for carbon credits, especially in Europe for economic reasons, has been declining since 2010
MCX launched contracts in gold, heating oil, gasoline, natural gas, sliver HNI and aviation turbine fuel (ATF). The futures contracts will expire between February and May and the trading specifications will remain unchanged, the exchanges said.
At a virtual press conference to launch the report, Inger Anderson, Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme, said, "Climate change is here and now. No one is safe. Despite warnings from so many years, the world did not listen. We need to act now. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions will not only limit climate change but also reduce air pollution."
India on Thursday made it clear that it would not accept any internationally binding agreement and that its climate change targets were not up for review.
At the roundtable Two, one of the four simultaneous meetings at the conference, a strongly worded statement by Minister of External Affairs S M Krishna said that the talks should focus on the developed countries who are reluctant to meet their commitments on emission reduction, let alone provide technological and financial support to developing countries.
Although India is the second largest generator of environment-friendly projects, domestic firms, public and private, are shying away from maximising the monetary benefits derived from such carbon emission reductions. The country, which is second only to China in terms of generating of carbon credits through the introduction of low polluting technologies, ranks very low when it comes to encashing of these credits through carbon trading.
A recent report by Barclays Capital, the global consultancy firm, forecast the Certified Emission Reduction price to surge 92 per cent in the first half of this year.
Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said "India's rhetoric was as strident as we ever heard China's, so we need to build a climate partnership with India, too; working from the same principles, but respecting the massive differences."
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.
The sustainable impact of this process is under scrutiny, Tripathi added.
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