Cse In News

Industrial Pollution

CSE recommends pathways for effective implementation of upcoming Indian Carbon Market

As India prepares to roll out its own national compliance-based carbon market, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has prepared a clear roadmap to help it along. India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced in the Budget of 2024-25 that a plan and appropriate regulations will be put in place for the transition of hard-to-abate sectors from a Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT) mode to an Indian Carbon Market (ICM) mode. CSE released its proposed roadmap – as part of its new report titled The Indian Carbon Market: Pathways towards an effective mechanism — here today at a global webinar. India has pledged to meet its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets by 2030, and aims for net-zero emissions by 2070, in line with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) guidelines. To meet these ambitious goals, the country has set out on a pathway to develop and launch its own national compliance-based carbon market. Formation of the Indian Carbon Market (ICM) had been announced under the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act of 2022. More recently, The Carbon Credit and Trading Scheme (CCTS) was notified in July 2023, with an aim to reduce GHG emissions. Speaking in the webinar, CSE director general Sunita Narain said: “The upcoming Indian Carbon Market scheme should kick start with a large coverage of the country’s emissions. A single nation-wide carbon market scheme for carbon-intensive sectors should be brought in to ensure effective implementation and avoid any complexity. For this scheme to be effective, it also needs to ensure a high carbon price, data integrity and transparency.” What does the CSE report say CSE’s new report aims to collate a clear set of learnings from past and present compliance-based emission trading schemes worldwide, including those operating in India. This learning would help facilitate effective operationalisation of carbon markets in India; it would also ensure they serve their intended purpose of reducing emissions. The report has analysed four Emission Trading Schemes (ETS) in use worldwide: the European Union Emission Trading System, the Korean ETS, the Chinese ETS, and the Surat ETS. India’s Perform, Achieve, and Trade (PAT) scheme, which specified energy reduction targets over three-year cycles, has also been assessed as it sets the base for the upcoming Indian Carbon Market scheme. Says Nivit Yadav, programme director, industrial pollution, CSE: “The PAT scheme was initiated with the good intention of increasing energy efficiency in industrial sectors, but faced several shortcomings in implementation. Our analysis shows it has achieved marginal emissions reduction, which is not enough as India attempts to travel towards decarbonisation, especially in the hard-to-abate industries.” In its PAT assessment, CSE has analysed emissions reductions in the power, steel and cement sectors. Says Parth Kumar, programme manager, industrial pollution, CSE: “We have found that in 2016, the Indian steel sector emissions stood at 135 million tonne (MT) of CO2 while it managed to reduce an average of only 2.5 MT of CO2 emissions per year between 2012 and 2020 (as per BEE data) — the sector reduced a mere 1.85 per cent emissions in a year. Similarly, the cement sector’s reduction was less than 1 per cent, while the power sector managed to cut down 2.3 per cent of its overall CO2 emissions of 2016 over a span of 6 years. Our analysis has highlighted the challenges in the PAT scheme, which include excess availability of ESCerts, lenient targets and delayed compliance. The newly proposed Carbon Credit and Trading Scheme (CCTS) which aims to build on PAT’s framework, needs to address these shortcomings.” What can be the challenges for the proposed new scheme? Low price of carbon credit and low market liquidity: Several global carbon markets have initially faced low carbon prices and market liquidity – India’s PAT scheme had also faced the challenge of low pricing and excess availability of certificates. Says Yadav: “Therefore, the upcoming CCTS scheme in India needs to carefully look into generating market activity throughout the year at a good carbon price, which then eventually pushes emitters to accelerate decarbonisation pathways instead of buying credits to fulfill compliance.” Unambitious target setting: So far, the PAT scheme has faced criticism for its goal-setting, which was perceived as lacking ambition: this has led to overachievement of targets and an oversupply of ESCerts, leading to a poor market price. Kumar points out: “As CCTS is modeled after the PAT scheme, it must avoid past mistakes by setting ambitious targets for individual entities and sectors, considering best practices and going beyond existing policy and company targets to ensure the market drives genuine progress rather than mere compliance.” Dependence on the PAT scheme: “This is one of the biggest challenges, as CCTS is going to transition from PAT. This dependence might limit its potential and its selection of obligated entities, which can make the scheme less effective and delay the decarbonisation efforts,” says Kumar. Running both schemes parallelly can create confusion within the sector and companies. Currently, there are plans for entities completing their PAT cycle to receive CCTS targets, which might not be the best way to shortlist entities for the scheme. This does not give a clear signal to achieve maximum emission reduction from CCTS. No revenue generation: Currently, the scheme does not have a clause for revenue generation. ETS schemes around the world have a way of generating revenue through auctioning allowances which are then allotted to modernisation, supporting of new entrants and small business, affected communities, and for financing decarbonisation. Yadav says: “The Indian Carbon Market model does not currently propose any form of auctioning of allowances, therefore we do not foresee revenue generation through it.” Data quality: Data quality issues have been reported in the Chinese and Surat ETS, especially data frauds in China ETS. The PAT scheme suffers from data transparency concerns. The smaller industries in CCTS will have a hard time producing data for their raw material and fuels, which are usually sourced from informal markets. Absence of a market stability mechanism: Market stability mechanisms play a crucial role in ensuring stability through holding and releasing credits into the market in case of unexpected external events. Currently, the Indian Carbon Market has not come out with any detailed proposed for any such mechanism. Non-imposition of penalties: Penalties under the PAT scheme are hardly imposed. Even if penalties are strict, the whole purpose is lost if regulators won’t levy them on entities. This is what happened with the power sector defaulters under the PAT scheme. If a similar practice continues under the CCTS, entities would not care to buy credits even if they are supposed to. Challenge of offset credits and other credit schemes: The proposed CCTS will include offset market credits, but experiences from markets like the EU-ETS show challenges with offset surges and integrity issues. India’s various market-based mechanisms aim to enhance sustainability and efficiency, but oversupply in older schemes like PAT and potential double counting among different upcoming credit systems pose risks like financial additionality. The integrity of credits and interaction of these schemes with the upcoming CCTS, requires strict regulatory frameworks and check mechanisms. The MSME challenge: CCTS aims to include large industrial sectors, but many rely on MSMEs, which may also become a part of the market, sooner or later, directly or indirectly. Challenges include obtaining accurate emissions data from MSMEs, often lacking due to informal fuel sources, and ensuring fair competition between MSMEs and larger companies. MSMEs, often using inefficient technologies and fuels and lack of financing sources, hindering their ability to meet targets and may struggle to afford carbon credits,. Exclusion of thermal power plants: Leaving the power sector behind in the carbon market scheme will miss out on a large chunk of the country’s emissions – the electricity sector contributes close to 40 per cent of India’s GHG emissions. There are several power plants with similar conditionalities but disparities in efficiency and emissions: CCTS can play a crucial role in bridging this gap. What does CSE recommend? Reduce complexity and have a single nation-wide scheme for carbon-intensive sectors: It is essential to free the carbon-intensive sectors from the PAT scheme at the earliest, so that CCTS is the only nation-wide scheme for these sectors, leaving no room for mismanagement and confusion. “The selection of obligated entities from high-emitting industrial sectors should not be based on the PAT cycle: this can reduce the effectiveness of CCTS in its initial phase. Having a single nation-wide scheme for carbon-intensive sectors will enable the biggest polluters and a large number of entities to be given CCTS targets from the very beginning. This will bring a collective zeal and coherence in the sector, and the feeling that all are moving towards a single goal,” notes Kumar. Ensure a stable, high carbon price: To do this, it is essential for the upcoming carbon market to set ambitious targets, establish market stability mechanisms, set up a high floor price and implement sizable penalties effectively. Voluntary credits should be limited to less than 5 per cent and should be of high integrity. Ensure data quality and improved transparency: To avoid data fraud as seen in the Chinese ETS, India must consider introducing heavy penalties and rigorous monitoring cycles for the obligated entities — China has done it in its 2024 regulation. It is also essential to build the capacity of carbon verifiers, involve multiple agencies in this job, and increase their numbers to ensure smooth data collection and MRV. It is essential to share reporting data in the public domain, which would then shield the data from manipulation. Introduce revenue generation to support MSMEs: The current Indian carbon market model lacks revenue generation mechanisms — it is crucial to devise methods to generate revenue from the scheme, which could fund MSMEs. A system (technological and financial) needs to be developed to support the MSME sector under CCTS to create a level playing field for them. Consider inclusion of thermal power sector: To address the significant contribution of the power sector to greenhouse gas emissions and to ensure effective progress towards India’s NDC targets, it is imperative to include the power sector in the carbon market scheme. The sector’s continuation under the PAT scheme might not be enough for the future needs of decarbonisation. “Power plants have shown subpar performance when it comes to meeting deadlines, targets of current schemes in the sector like meeting SOx emission norms, biomass co-firing and others. Inclusion of thermal power plants in the CCTS will give an added push for power plants to implement emission reduction policies like biomass co-firing and other upcoming policies. ” adds Yadav.

Industrial Pollution

Dire state of biomass co-firing in NCR plants flagged in CSE report

Of the 11 coal-fired power plants in Delhi-NCR, none had co-fired even 1% of the biomass in their plants till last year, highlights a new report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Titled ‘The Indian Carbon Market: Pathway Towards an Effective Mechanism’, the CSE report was released on Tuesday. It sheds light on the “dire state of biomass co-firing” at the thermal power plants (TPP) in Delhi- NCR. In September 2021, the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) mandated 11 TPPs in the Delhi-NCR within a 300-kilometre radius to co-fire biomass pellets in 5 to 10% proportion to coal. According to the directive, at least 10% of co-firing was to be targeted by the TPPs by December 2023. “Very recently, two plants in NCR have been able to reach 2-3% co-firing but the majority have not even begun even when 2024–25 is the first year for compliance,” reads the report. Anubha Aggarwal, the author of a 2023 study on the status of biomass co-firing in coal thermal power plants in Delhi-NCR, explains biomass co-firing to be a process in which there is a partial replacement of coal with biomass fuel for power generation even as coal still being the dominant fuel. “Biomass co-firing in thermal power plants in Delhi-NCR is important given the nature of Delhi leading in air pollution…From what we have learned so far only Jajjar TPP and Indira Gandhi TPP are co-firing 2-3% biomass. There is a CAQM mandate on biomass co-firing which if violated the offenders would face stringent punishment,” said Parth Kumar, the author of the CSE report. Under section 14 of the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) Act, 2021, nonadherence to the CAQM direction on biomass co-firing will be considered an offence ‘punishable with imprisonment’ for a term that may extend up to five years or with a fine of up to 1 crore or both. “There is laxity on the side of plants in NCR but I am sure TPPs will soon be under pressure. We are hopeful that with the upcoming Renewable Generation Obligation (RGO) in the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS) scheme and the CAQM mandate the TPPs in the NCR will be under pressure for co-firing,” added Kumar. He added, that the non-compliance by the TPPs is linked to reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions. The report mentions that the decarbonisation strategy is important to meet India’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets by 2030 and to attain net-zero emissions by 2070. The CCTS, proposed under the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act, passed in Parliament in December 2022 proposed the formation of an Indian Carbon Market (ICM). Among the challenges, raised by the study for the ICM, it has been observed that the exclusion of the thermal power sector from the CCTS is problematic. The report said, “Currently, the thermal power sector entities have to comply with the PAT scheme and are also mandated to co-fire biomass of up to 5-7 % in the subsequent year. The power sector in the PAT scheme has been the only sector that has not been able to achieve its Indian Carbon Market Policy targets and no penalties have been applied to them for non-compliance.” “Due to the inclusion in CCTS, the thermal power plants would have an incentivised target to meet, with a penalty for non-compliance which would push for better implementation of the RGO and biomass co-firing policy. Without any regulation and penalty in place, the power plants might flout the individual policy deadlines as they have in the past for other policies (SOx emission norms),” mentioned the report.

Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

Cleaning up Bengaluru’s air: Not a priority despite soaring pollution

Extremely high vehicular emissions, mountains of dust from unregulated construction debris, dramatic decline in tree cover… Bengaluru was already slipping big on the air pollution map into deep red territory when the city earned another notoriety: The worst performer among 25 cities in use of funds under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). Doesn’t this defy logic? First, the grim statistics: Bengaluru used barely 13% of the grants released under the 15th Finance Commission to support the clean air programme, says a report prepared by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Compare this with over 70% fund utilization by Lucknow, Hyderabad and Greater Mumbai. Out of 16 cities studied for emission of Particulate Matter (PM 2.5), Bengaluru had the highest 64% contribution from vehicular exhaust. While diesel generator (DG) sets contributed 11% of the city’s PM 2.5, open solid waste burning was linked to 10% of the emissions. Road dust made up 7% of the pollutants. Delhi, which often struggles with its vehicular congestion, had only 39% of the PM 2.5 coming from transport exhaust. No stopping emissions The picture is grim. Despite an explosive, unregulated growth of vehicles, which, at last count stood in excess of 1.20 crore, the city has fallen short on activating multiple measures mandated under the NCAP programme. City action plans had to be prepared, source apportionment studies completed, pollution hotspots identified and a pollution emergency response plan readied. The report has also found huge gaps in regulation of on-road emissions management, phasing out of old vehicles, improvement of public transport, electrification, non-motorised transport and parking policy. To put this in perspective, Bengaluru’s Air Quality Index (AQI) – a measure of PM10 and PM2.5 - has been seeing a considerable drop. Before the rains arrived, the number of good air quality days (AQI between 0 and 100) in March was much less than March 2023. Coordination gaps NCAP’s performance-linked funding with targeted milestones inevitably requires all the stakeholders to show time-bound results. This is where Bengaluru’s multiple agencies have been found wanting. V. Ramprasad, a seasoned environmentalist and pollution watcher attributes it to lack of coordination, primarily between the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) and the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). “The Board and the Palike do whatever they want. This is because of a lack of governance. There are no elected corporators and mayor,” he points out. “These are all Mayoral programmes, not what the Deputy Chief Minister or Chief Minister should undertake. As long as there are no elections, this will go on. There is no one in-charge and nobody is taking full responsibility. They pass on the blame to BMTC, transport and other departments.” In February 2023, the Centre had granted ₹116 crore to Bengaluru for its clean air projects, adding to the ₹419 crore released earlier in two tranches. The Urban Development Department had prepared a micro action plan for eight works and sent it to the Chief Minister’s Office for approval. Bulk of the funds were released to the Palike for improvement of junctions, footpath improvement, nurseries and parks. The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) received funds to buy electric buses. Third-party audit While the State Assembly elections, code of conduct and other factors delayed the works, questions were raised on the use of the funds for a waste transfer station. On the Palike agenda was a plan to procure 250 electric vehicles for marshals monitoring solid waste related activities. It later dropped plans to procure 75 mechanical sweepers since it could not manage even the existing machinery. Many have called for a third party audit to ascertain how the grant money is being spent. Dr. R. Subramanian, Head, Air Quality Sector, at the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) acknowledges that there are plans in place to utilize the funds on road improvement, urban greening and more. But the Palike, he notes, faces issues in tendering. “These are taxpayers’ money, and the government is trying to be cautious, to get the best value for work. They are faced with issues like whether they should buy equipment or rent them, whatever is more cost-efficient,” he elaborates. Delayed process The focus of NCAP, he reminds, is mainly on PM10 particles. “A lot of PM10 is really dust, whether construction dust or re-suspended road dust. As for PM2.5, they are trying to buy more electric buses. It will be a lot easier when you are trying to procure 3, 4 or 10 buses than massive orders in hundreds. You will then have to comply with many regulations that are triggered. Can those regulations be eased? That is not the purview of the transport department. That’s why the whole tendering process seems to have taken a while,” he says. Ramprasad talks about how dust control and air purification mechanisms mandated for both public infrastructure and private builders are not followed. As far back as January 2018, the State government had directed builders and road / rail developers to follow the 2016 National Greens Tribunal (NGT) norms mandating regular watering at construction sites, covered trucks to carry material, tarpaulin covers at under-construction sites and a ban on dumping of debris, sands on roads and inside colonies. No dust control Beyond physical barricades of a certain height, dust control measures are rarely seen at the Namma Metro construction sites or private building projects. Dr. Subramanian says the government might find it tough to control other than periodic visits. However, he suggests deploying dust sensors at construction sites like in Mumbai and Delhi. Massive construction projects can afford these since it would only be a small fraction of the total cost. Road dust combined with vehicular exhaust can multiply the pollution hazards, a deadly mix of PM10 and PM2.5 particles. As a former KSPCB official on the technical side explains, dust kicked up by vehicles and tail-end emissions are suspended in air at an altitude of 3-4ft above the ground. Two-wheeler riders and autorickshaw drivers and passengers directly inhale this, triggering health issues. Role of white-topping The white-topping of roads has only added to the problem. “White-topped roads are cement and concrete. Dust particles rise when vehicles continuously move and constantly brake, triggering friction, wear-and-tear. While BMTC bus passengers sitting at a height of 7-8ft escape this, motorcyclists cannot get away,” the official points out. To make matters worse, roads are not cleaned frequently and the dust accumulates on the kerb side. As he puts it, “When the hot exhaust hits, the dust is re-suspended once again. During dry days, this re-suspension goes up further.” No plantation On the greening side, seasoned legal activist on environmental concerns, Dattatreya Devare flags another concern: Lack of activation on the emission hotspots, 53 of which were identified for plantation activities by KSPCB as part of a comprehensive air pollution control strategy. Twenty-three of these hotspots are within the transportation sector. These areas face an enormous amount of tailpipe emissions and road dust, while the other hotspots suffer from high air pollution triggered by construction and demolition. The major pollution sources are digging, demolition, excavation, cement work, and movement of construction vehicles. The Forest department was tasked with carrying out plantation activities in these hotspots. “Very little priority is being given to the plantation. It has to be done mainly by the BBMP forest cell. But they have their own annual plantation programme. I have not seen them adding the plantation requirements under different plans,” Devare points out. He also cites the Karnataka Heat Wave Action Plan, which also mandates plantation. “I have been tracking them for long, but have not seen any integration of plantations under different programmes. Obviously then, the funds are not utilized.”

Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

Centre advises States and UTs to use plastic waste in road construction in cities

To tackle the challenge of plastic waste management, the central government has recently advised states and Union Territories to use plastic waste in the construction of roads in cities, The Indian Express has learnt. The government has advised states and UTs to use plastic waste up to 8% of the weight of bitumen in roads within cities, including internal roads of housing colonies and office complexes. In 2013, the Indian Road Congress had published guidelines for use of plastic waste in road-making and in 2015, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) issued an order making it mandatory to use plastic waste mixed with bitumen in roads within 50km periphery of urban areas with population of 5 lakh and above. The Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry wrote to states and UTs on July 8 asking them to take steps to implement the Indian Road Congress guidelines. They were asked to use “plastic waste in bituminous roads wherever they may be constructed such as all departmental roads including internal roads in housing colonies, treatment plants for water supply, sewerage and solid waste, office complexes etc. to give a fillip to proper utilisation of non- recyclable plastic waste with suitable changes in bid documents”. The states and UTs were also asked to take up the issue with their major road construction departments, including PWD, Rural Development Department and Panchayati Raj. Three central government secretaries – Vini Mahajan (Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation under Ministry of Jal Shakti, Anurag Jain (MoRTH and MoHUA) and Shailesh Kumar Singh (Ministry of Rural Development), had on June 28 written to all chief secretaries to encourage use of plastic waste. “…it is requested to ensure the availability of appropriate quality waste plastic and review the usage of waste plastic in road construction within respective states/UTs… States/UTs must prioritise establishing a comprehensive framework for utilisation of waste plastic in bituminous road construction across all types of roads…” the secretaries wrote. They said that the required changes should be made to the Detailed Project Report (DPR), tender and Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) documents prepared for road projects. Some experts, however, caution against viewing its use in roads as the only or best solution to the problem of mounting plastic waste. “Using plastic waste in road making is a form of end of life disposal, which is the least preferred option compared to mechanical recycling and co-processing. Reduction of plastic waste should be the first and most preferred option, followed by mechanical recycling and co-processing,” said Siddharth Ghanshyam Singh, programme manager for the Centre for Science and Environment’s for municipal solid waste and circular economy unit. According to CPCB’s latest figures, 4.12 tonnes of plastic waste was generated in 2020-21. Around 60% of that is recycled. For each kilometre of road with 3.75 m width, using 1 tonnes of plastic waste mixed with bitumen can save `6.3 lakh, according to a 2019 MoHUA plastic waste management document.

Sustainable Habitat

Extreme Heat Adaptation and Mitigation Programming: Lessons from the Affected Population

The latest issue of Southasiadisasters.net focuses on the crucial topic of “Extreme Heat Adaptation and Mitigation Programming: Lessons from the Affected Population”. As the frequency and intensity of extreme heat events continue to rise due to climate change, vulnerable populations in South Asia face significant health risks and socio-economic challenges. This issue delves into the pressing need for proactive measures to safeguard communities from the impacts of extreme heat. Extreme heat has become a leading cause of weather-related mortality, disproportionately affecting marginalized communities, outdoor labourers, and the urban poor. It exacerbates existing inequalities and overwhelms healthcare systems, making it imperative for governments, civil society, and stakeholders to develop and implement effective adaptation and mitigation strategies. This issue highlights a range of topics, including best practices for urban planning to reduce heat islands, community-based resilience strategies, and the role of local governance in heat action plans. It also offers insights into successful interventions and policies from across South Asia, emphasizing the need for tailored, region-specific solutions. Most importantly, this issue calls upon governments, civil society, and international organizations to take urgent and meaningful action to mitigate the risks of extreme heat. It encourages stakeholders to collaborate on implementing effective heat adaptation programs that protect the most vulnerable and build long-term resilience against this growing threat. IN THIS ISSUE Extreme Heat: Key Lessons – Mihir R. Bhatt interviewed by Manish Patel, AIDMI, India Lessons from NRDC Partners: Top Three Lessons by Dr. Vijay Limaye, Senior Scientist and Director, Science Office & International, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Shelter Lessons from Heatwave Affected Population: Top Three Lessons by Rajneesh Sareen, Programme Director, Sustainable Habitat Programme, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, India

Urban Lab

Operating the perfect cooling center is harder than it looks

In rural Ajo, Arizona, temperatures topped 100F (38C) every single day in June and July. For most of that time, the only spot within roughly 40 miles offering a free air-conditioned refuge was the local library — and that was only Monday through Friday. But on Aug. 3, Ajo celebrated the grand opening of its first “COOLtainer,” a repurposed shipping container outfitted with solar panels, a battery, AC, and seating. Arizona’s COOLtainer program has deployed 15 such containers since launching this year, with another three on the way. The one in Ajo brings Pima County’s tally of cooling centers to 39, and will help fill gaps in cooling capacity: It’s open on weekends and during power outages. In the face of rising temperatures, cities from Athens to Miami to Tokyo are increasingly embracing cooling centers — often indoor, air-conditioned public spaces that are activated during extreme heat. The need has never been greater: Thanks in large part to human-caused climate change, this year is on track to be the hottest ever. But crafting the perfect cooling center isn’t as simple as cranking the AC. Leaders like Arizona are learning that success often depends on tapping into community networks, making cool spaces as accessible as possible, and location, location, location. year,” says David Hondula, director of heat response and mitigation for the city of Phoenix. “We believe — and we think the data supports the notion — that access to cool space and water is life-saving.” On paper, Chicago in July 1995 seemed like the perfect cooling center use case. During a five-day heat wave, temperatures hit 106F and the heat index — how hot it actually feels — hit a staggering 125F. More than 700 people died. But while Chicago opened a handful of cooling centers, “very few people used them,” says Eric Klinenberg, a sociology professor at New York University and author of Heat Wave, about the 1995 event. “The population that needs them most — the elderly, the isolated, the poor — is also least likely to know they exist, and they are often hard to reach for that population on dangerously hot days.” A few decades later, getting people to show up remains a challenge. When Los Angeles experienced a deadly heat wave in September 2020 — admittedly, during a global pandemic — fewer than 300 people used the city’s six cooling centers. When heat emergencies hit New York City and Washington, D.C. this month, Bloomberg Green reporters visited a dozen cooling centers across both cities and found that some hadn’t seen a single visitor all day. The main exception were libraries, where several people confirmed they’d stopped by to escape high temperatures. Among the hurdles is a simple lack of awareness. Up until a few years ago, many people “didn’t know what a cooling center was or that it was available to them,” says Quinn Adams, a PhD student working on environmental health at Boston University. Location is another challenge. Because they often use existing infrastructure, “many cooling centers aren’t strategically placed,” says Michael Allen, an associate professor of geography at Towson University. Last year, Allen and his colleagues mapped 1,433 cooling centers across the US Southeast. They found that only 36% of the region’s population — and fewer than 10% of the most vulnerable groups in most states — lived within a 15-minute drive of one. As temperatures rise, many government officials are launching or revisiting their cooling center strategies. Chicago put more resources into its centers following the 1995 heat wave. Pima County has added cooling centers and expanded access to them in recent years, including by launching an interactive map that helped the county identify Ajo’s need for one. Japan is pushing local governments to set up cooling centers to reduce incidents of heat stroke, the most serious type of heat illness. As of July 30, at least 740 governments had done so — up from 139 in 2023 — according to the nation’s environment ministry In India, where 1.4 billion people face increasingly dangerous heat, several local governments have published heat action plans that call for cooling centers. But “no such dedicated facilities have been built on the ground,” says Avikal Somvanshi, head of the Urban Lab at India’s Centre for Science and Environment. Earlier this year, nonprofits Mahila Housing Trust and NRDC India took matters in their own hands, debuting a cooling station in the north Indian city of Jodhpur that’s powered by solar panels. Fans and misters provide the cooling, along with a special roof designed to maximize air flow. Abhiyant Tiwari, health and climate resilience lead at NRDC India, calls it “the first of its kind.” There is no one-size-fits-all cooling center. Some, like the COOLtainers, are movable. Many make use of existing facilities, including senior centers in Tokyo, libraries in London and mosques in Delhi. Some are only open on the hottest days, while others are accessible all summer. Some simply offer fans or AC, while others have water, snacks, towels, seating or places to lay down. Arizona’s Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, is arguably the world leader in cooling center strategy. The region has been expanding its network of them for roughly 20 years, and Hondula says there is now more funding, staffing and data collection than “anything I can remember over about 10 years of involvement.” The county offers three tiers of cooling facility: hydration stations with free water, cooling centers for a short rest, and “respite centers” for longer and sometimes overnight stays. Phoenix alone has more than 100 private- and governmentrun cooling facilities, including five city-owned sites with extended hours. As of this year, Hondula says the locations with extended hours all have dedicated staff and security, and by Aug. 7 had received more than 20,000 visits during their extended hours alone. “It’s a really large investment that we’re making that I know the city hasn’t made for this purpose in the past,” he says. Still, research on how effective cooling centers are at protecting people from heat is sparse. The Biden administration highlighted this knowledge gap in its new National Heat Strategy, which lists research on cooling shelters as a priority. In one study published in 2022, Adams and other academics found that “an unfeasibly large number of people would have to visit these centers in order to actually reduce the number of observed heat-related deaths.” Hondula and his colleagues used the same methodology to show that, in Maricopa County at least, cooling centers are more effective at saving lives when it comes to people experiencing homelessness. “I’m never going to say cooling centers shouldn’t happen — they absolutely should,” says Sarah Henderson, scientific director of environment health services at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. “But it can’t be what we’re hanging our hat on to protect people during extreme heat events.” Glen Kenny, a physiology professor at the University of Ottawa, is also among those seeking more intel. Kenny studies heat impacts on the body, and used heat wave simulations to determine that a few hours in a cooling centers can reduce core body temperature and heart strain among elderly people exposed to extreme heat. But he also found that their body temperature spiked to pre-cooling levels within two hours of leaving air conditioning, putting people at risk of overexerting themselves just when they think they’re in the clear. “What would be the natural tendency of somebody coming out of a cooling center? ‘I feel great,’” Kenny says. “‘I’m maybe going to do my groceries, go for a walk, maybe do stuff around the home and clean up.’ I’m going to do things that I really shouldn’t do.

Urban Lab

Operating the Perfect Cooling Center Is Harder Than It Looks

In rural Ajo, Arizona, temperatures topped 100F (38C) every single day in June and July. For most of that time, the only spot within roughly 40 miles offering a free air-conditioned refuge was the local library — and that was only Monday through Friday. But on Aug. 3, Ajo celebrated the grand opening of its first “COOLtainer,” a repurposed shipping container outfitted with solar panels, a battery, AC, and seating. Arizona’s COOLtainer program has deployed 15 such containers since launching this year, with another three on the way. The one in Ajo brings Pima County’s tally of cooling centers to 39, and will help fill gaps in cooling capacity: It’s open on weekends and during power outages. In the face of rising temperatures, cities from Athens to Miami to Tokyo are increasingly embracing cooling centers — often indoor, air-conditioned public spaces that are activated during extreme heat. The need has never been greater: Thanks in large part to human-caused climate change, this year is on track to be the hottest ever. But crafting the perfect cooling center isn’t as simple as cranking the AC. Leaders like Arizona are learning that success often depends on tapping into community networks, making cool spaces as accessible as possible, and location, location, location. “It’s a very important component of our heat response plan and certainly one we’re investing more than ever as a city this year,” says David Hondula, director of heat response and mitigation for the city of Phoenix. “We believe — and we think the data supports the notion — that access to cool space and water is life-saving.” On paper, Chicago in July 1995 seemed like the perfect cooling center use case. During a five-day heat wave, temperatures hit 106F and the heat index — how hot it actually feels — hit a staggering 125F. More than 700 people died. But while Chicago opened a handful of cooling centers, “very few people used them,” says Eric Klinenberg, a sociology professor at New York University and author of Heat Wave, about the 1995 event. “The population that needs them most — the elderly, the isolated, the poor — is also least likely to know they exist, and they are often hard to reach for that population on dangerously hot days.” A few decades later, getting people to show up remains a challenge. When Los Angeles experienced a deadly heat wave in September 2020 — admittedly, during a global pandemic — fewer than 300 people used the city’s six cooling centers. When heat emergencies hit New York City and Washington, D.C. this month, Bloomberg Green reporters visited a dozen cooling centers across both cities and found that some hadn’t seen a single visitor all day. The main exception were libraries, where several people confirmed they’d stopped by to escape high temperatures. Among the hurdles is a simple lack of awareness. Up until a few years ago, many people “didn’t know what a cooling center was or that it was available to them,” says Quinn Adams, a PhD student working on environmental health at Boston University. Location is another challenge. Because they often use existing infrastructure, “many cooling centers aren’t strategically placed,” says Michael Allen, an associate professor of geography at Towson University. Last year, Allen and his colleagues mapped 1,433 cooling centers across the US Southeast. They found that only 36% of the region’s population — and fewer than 10% of the most vulnerable groups in most states — lived within a 15-minute drive of one. As temperatures rise, many government officials are launching or revisiting their cooling center strategies. Chicago put more resources into its centers following the 1995 heat wave. Pima County has added cooling centers and expanded access to them in recent years, including by launching an interactive map that helped the county identify Ajo’s need for one. Japan is pushing local governments to set up cooling centers to reduce incidents of heat stroke, the most serious type of heat illness. As of July 30, at least 740 governments had done so — up from 139 in 2023 — according to the nation’s environment ministry. In India, where 1.4 billion people face increasingly dangerous heat, several local governments have published heat action plans that call for cooling centers. But “no such dedicated facilities have been built on the ground,” says Avikal Somvanshi, head of the Urban Lab at India’s Centre for Science and Environment. Earlier this year, nonprofits Mahila Housing Trust and NRDC India took matters in their own hands, debuting a cooling station in the north Indian city of Jodhpur that’s powered by solar panels. Fans and misters provide the cooling, along with a special roof designed to maximize air flow. Abhiyant Tiwari, health and climate resilience lead at NRDC India, calls it “the first of its kind.” There is no one-size-fits-all cooling center. Some, like the COOLtainers, are movable. Many make use of existing facilities, including senior centers in Tokyo, libraries in London and mosques in Delhi. Some are only open on the hottest days, while others are accessible all summer. Some simply offer fans or AC, while others have water, snacks, towels, seating or places to lay down. Arizona’s Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, is arguably the world leader in cooling center strategy. The region has been expanding its network of them for roughly 20 years, and Hondula says there is now more funding, staffing and data collection than “anything I can remember over about 10 years of involvement.” The county offers three tiers of cooling facility: hydration stations with free water, cooling centers for a short rest, and “respite centers” for longer and sometimes overnight stays. Phoenix alone has more than 100 private- and government-run cooling facilities, including five city-owned sites with extended hours. As of this year, Hondula says the locations with extended hours all have dedicated staff and security, and by Aug. 7 had received more than 20,000 visits during their extended hours alone. “It’s a really large investment that we’re making that I know the city hasn’t made for this purpose in the past,” he says. Still, research on how effective cooling centers are at protecting people from heat is sparse. The Biden administration highlighted this knowledge gap in its new National Heat Strategy, which lists research on cooling shelters as a priority. In one study published in 2022, Adams and other academics found that “an unfeasibly large number of people would have to visit these centers in order to actually reduce the number of observed heat-related deaths.” Hondula and his colleagues used the same methodology to show that, in Maricopa County at least, cooling centers are more effective at saving lives when it comes to people experiencing homelessness. “I’m never going to say cooling centers shouldn’t happen — they absolutely should,” says Sarah Henderson, scientific director of environment health services at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. “But it can’t be what we’re hanging our hat on to protect people during extreme heat events.” Glen Kenny, a physiology professor at the University of Ottawa, is also among those seeking more intel. Kenny studies heat impacts on the body, and used heat wave simulations to determine that a few hours in a cooling centers can reduce core body temperature and heart strain among elderly people exposed to extreme heat. But he also found that their body temperature spiked to pre-cooling levels within two hours of leaving air conditioning, putting people at risk of overexerting themselves just when they think they’re in the clear. “What would be the natural tendency of somebody coming out of a cooling center? ‘I feel great,’” Kenny says. “‘I’m maybe going to do my groceries, go for a walk, maybe do stuff around the home and clean up.’ I’m going to do things that I really shouldn’t do.” Read more Heat Week coverage: A $91 Billion Trade Keeps Miners Digging in Record Desert Heat Experts Are Fighting Over Naming Heat Waves This Is How We Know When the World Has Its Hottest Day No One Knows How Many People Are Dying From Heat --With assistance from Shoko Oda, Matthew Griffin and Alexander Battle Abdelal. (Updates with information from new US National Heat Strategy in eighteenth paragraph.) ©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

Is recycling the answer to Mumbai’s solid waste management woes?

“One life-form turns into another. Recycling is like that,” says Ramnikbhai Satra, a scrap dealer, as he compares inanimate objects taking on another form to the cycle of death and rebirth. Even as he speaks to me, he keeps an eye on one of his workers weighing newspapers and flattened cartons, answers a customer who wants to know the price of some plastic objects kept in a tray next to which there is a box of glass jars of all shapes and sizes. “Individuals sell this stuff to me. Then it is picked up for recycling by different people— a different person for glass, for paper and so on,” he explains. Recycling—one of the three Rs of ‘Reduce, Refuse and Recycle’— is considered to be one among a cluster of solutions including segregation at source, composting, and decentralised processing, to reduce the burden on our landfills. Mumbai’s two currently functional dumping grounds which accept municipal solid waste (MSW) at Deonar and Kanjurmarg are filling to capacity, but more importantly, pose health hazards to the people living around the area and working there. In fact, the state government is considering moving the Kanjurmarg dumping ground to Ambernath. In the first and second parts of this series of articles, we took a look at the systems the BMC has in place for waste collection and disposal. In this third and final part, we look at how far recycling can be a solution to Mumbai’s garbage problem. What can be recycled? Smita Birkar who is the Founder and Director of the 5R FOUNDATION says plastic, paper, metal and glass can be recycled. She adds, “Ideally, all of them could be recycled, but it also depends upon how they are manufactured. If it is an individual pure material like if it is only plastic, only paper, only metal, or only glass, then recycling is much more streamlined. Whenever you mix two materials, there are challenges when it comes to recycling.” Plastic recycling Plastic needs different methods of handling since it is available in different grades. A report published by the Centre for Science and Environment states that plastic can be grouped into seven categories:

Down To Earth

Parametric Insurance: Can it provide the financial safety net India needs against climate risks?

Between 2000 and 2019, India experienced the third-highest number of natural disaster events globally. The future looks grim as the frequency and intensity of these disasters are projected to increase, causing losses and damages running into billions of U.S. dollars. Traditional government funds may not be enough to cover these costs, highlighting the need for innovative financial solutions. One such novel tool India is cautiously experimenting with is parametric insurance. Unlike conventional insurance schemes, which rely on indemnity and post-disaster loss evaluations, parametric insurance operates on predefined parameters that, when met, trigger immediate payouts. This approach is particularly crucial in a country like India, which experiences natural disasters quite frequently. According to a report by the Centre for Science and Environment, India encountered weather-related disasters almost daily in the first nine months of 2022 alone. Between 2019 and 2023, these disasters led to damages worth $56 billion.

Industrial Pollution

CSE calls for uniformity in India’s upcoming national carbon market, seeks rigorous monitoring cycles for making it effective

NEW DELHI: As India prepares to roll out its own national compliance-based carbon market, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has brought out a report assessing several emission-trading schemes, and suggested bringing uniformity in the upcoming market and introducing “heavy penalties and rigorous monitoring cycles” for making the system effective. To ensure uniformity, it suggested freeing up the carbon-intensive sectors from the ‘perform, achieve and trade’ (PAT) scheme at the earliest, so that ‘carbon credit and trading scheme’ (CCTS) remains the only nationwide scheme for these sectors, leaving no room for mismanagement and confusion. Suggestions from the CSE, a Delhi-based think tank, come in the backdrop of the govt’s announcement in the 2024-25 budget about a plan to put in place “appropriate regulations” for the transition of hard-to-abate sectors (such as steel and cement) from the PAT mode to an Indian carbon market (ICM) mode. “A roadmap for moving the ‘hard to abate’ industries from ‘energy efficiency’ targets to ‘emission targets’ will be formulated,” finance minister Nirmala Sitharam had announced in her budget speech on July 23. Carbon market is one of the tools to combat climate change where credits are assigned to projects that can reduce greenhouse gases. These credits, measured in tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e), are then priced and traded. People and businesses that wish to offset their emissions can buy these credits and ‘neutralise’ their carbon footprints. “The upcoming ICM scheme should kick start with a large coverage of the country’s emissions. A single nation-wide carbon market scheme for carbon-intensive sectors should be brought in to ensure effective implementation and avoid any complexity. For this scheme to be effective, it also needs to ensure a high carbon price, data integrity and transparency,” said Sunita Narain, director general, CSE. Formation of the Indian Carbon Market (ICM) had first been announced under the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act of 2022. Later, CCTS was notified in July 2023 with an aim to reduce GHG emissions. Speaking about the PAT scheme, Nivit Yadav, programme director of industrial pollution at CSE, said, “The scheme was initiated with the good intention of increasing energy efficiency in industrial sectors, but faced several shortcomings in implementation. Our analysis shows it has achieved marginal emissions reduction, which is not enough as India attempts to travel towards decarbonisation, especially in the hard-to-abate industries."

Industrial Pollution

CSE calls for uniformity in India’s upcoming national carbon market, seeks rigorous monitoring cycles for making it effective

Industrial Pollution

India's Carbon Market Roadmap Unveiled By CSE

As India prepares to launch its national carbon market, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has outlined a clear roadmap to guide this transition In the 2024-25 Budget, India’s Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, announced that a plan and appropriate regulations would be implemented to transition hard-to-abate sectors from the Perform, Achieve, and Trade (PAT) scheme to the Indian Carbon Market (ICM) mode. CSE released its proposed roadmap today during a global webinar as part of its new report titled The Indian Carbon Market: Pathways towards an Effective Mechanism. This report collates lessons from compliance-based emission trading schemes worldwide, including those in India, to facilitate the effective operationalisation of carbon markets in India. The goal is to ensure these markets serve their intended purpose of reducing emissions. India has pledged to meet its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets by 2030. It aims for net-zero emissions by 2070, in line with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) guidelines. The country is developing and launching its own national compliance-based carbon market to achieve these ambitious goals. The formation of the Indian Carbon Market (ICM) was initially announced under the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act of 2022. More recently, the Carbon Credit and Trading Scheme (CCTS) was notified in July 2023 to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The CSE report analyses four Emission Trading Schemes (ETS) currently in use worldwide: the European Union Emission Trading System, the Korean ETS, the Chinese ETS, and the Surat ETS. It also assesses India's Perform, Achieve, and Trade (PAT) scheme, which has set the base for the upcoming Indian Carbon Market scheme by specifying energy reduction targets over three-year cycles. In its assessment of the PAT scheme, CSE examined emissions reductions in the power, steel, and cement sectors. According to Parth Kumar, Programme Manager for Industrial Pollution at CSE, the findings reveal that the Indian steel sector's emissions stood at 135 million tonnes (MT) of CO2 in 2016, but the sector managed to reduce an average of only 2.5 MT of CO2 emissions per year between 2012 and 2020. This equates to a mere 1.85 percent reduction in emissions annually. Similarly, the cement sector’s reduction was less than 1 percent, while the power sector managed to cut down 2.3 percent of its overall CO2 emissions in 2016 over six years. These findings highlight the challenges in the PAT scheme, which include the excess availability of Energy Saving Certificates (ESCerts), lenient targets, and delayed compliance. The newly proposed Carbon Credit and Trading Scheme (CCTS), which aims to build on the PAT framework, needs to address these shortcomings. Several challenges could affect the proposed new scheme. One significant issue is the low price of carbon credits and low market liquidity. Many global carbon markets, including India’s PAT scheme, initially faced challenges such as low pricing and excess availability of certificates. Additionally, the PAT scheme has faced criticism for setting unambitious targets, leading to the overachievement of goals and an oversupply of ESCerts, which has resulted in poor market prices. Kumar emphasises that CCTS must avoid these past mistakes by setting ambitious targets for individual entities and sectors, considering best practices and going beyond existing policies to ensure the market drives genuine progress rather than mere compliance. Another challenge is the dependence on the PAT scheme, which may limit the potential of CCTS and its selection of obligated entities, making the scheme less effective and potentially delaying decarbonisation efforts. Running both schemes concurrently could create confusion within the sector. Currently, entities completing their PAT cycle are expected to receive CCTS targets, which may not be the best way to shortlist participants for the scheme. This approach does not clearly signal the need to achieve maximum emission reductions under CCTS. The scheme also lacks a revenue generation clause. While ETS schemes worldwide generate revenue through auctioning allowances, which are then allocated to modernisation, support for new entrants and small businesses, and financing decarbonisation, the Indian Carbon Market model currently does not propose any form of auctioning, which limits the potential for revenue generation. Data quality is another concern, as issues have been reported in other ETSs, such as data fraud in the Chinese ETS. The PAT scheme has also faced transparency concerns, and smaller industries in CCTS may struggle to produce accurate data for their raw materials and fuels, which are often sourced from informal markets. The absence of a market stability mechanism is also problematic. Such mechanisms play a crucial role in ensuring stability by holding and releasing credits into the market in response to unexpected external events. The Indian Carbon Market has yet to propose any detailed mechanism for this. Non-imposition of penalties has been another issue under the PAT scheme, where penalties are rarely enforced. Even if penalties are strict, the effectiveness of the scheme is undermined if regulators do not impose them, as was the case with power sector defaulters under PAT. If similar practices continue under CCTS, entities may disregard their obligations to buy credits. The inclusion of offset credits and interaction with other credit schemes also pose challenges. The proposed CCTS will include offset market credits, but experiences from markets like the EU-ETS show challenges with offset surges and integrity issues. India’s various market-based mechanisms aim to enhance sustainability and efficiency, but oversupply in older schemes like PAT and potential double counting among different upcoming credit systems could threaten the integrity of credits and require strict regulatory frameworks. Additionally, the CCTS aims to include large industrial sectors, many of which rely on MSMEs. These MSMEs may become part of the market, directly or indirectly, but they face challenges such as obtaining accurate emissions data, using inefficient technologies and fuels, and lacking financing sources. These factors hinder their ability to meet targets and may lead to struggles in affording carbon credits, potentially causing unfair competition with larger companies. Finally, the exclusion of thermal power plants from the carbon market scheme would miss out on a significant portion of the country’s emissions, as the electricity sector contributes nearly 40 percent of India’s GHG emissions. Several power plants have similar conditions but disparities in efficiency and emissions, and CCTS could play a crucial role in bridging this gap.

Renewable Energy

Experimenting with biogas from cactus

Cactus research in Jhansi aims to boost the production of the spineless fodder cacti to improve farmers’ income as rhe cacti can be used for fodder, food, fibre, fertiliser and fuel. Research organisations working on this are planning to produce biogas from the cactus slurry in Bundelkhand using a viable alternative to traditional feedstocks such as cow dung that produces 65% biomethane. After a small-scale study with cactus slurry achieving up to 61% methane content in biogas production, scientists involved in the experiment are hopeful that it can be a commercially viable option. To enhance the production of biogas in Uttar Pradesh’s semi-arid region of Bundelkhand, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) – Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute (IGFRI) and International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) are pioneering a transformation in agricultural practices with the spineless fodder cactus in Jhansi. Germplasm of 15 varieties of spineless cacti, locally known as Nagphani, were imported from countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Tunisia and Italy back in 2014 to experiment with growing the varieties here to substitute the need for green fodder during summers. “Apart from fodder, the plant also has several other uses,” said D. R. Palsaniya, Head and Principal Scientist, Agronomy, IGFRI. “The plant is used for five ‘Fs’ that stand for fodder, food, fibre, fertiliser and fuel. The fruit of this cactus, known as prickly pear, is eaten as fruit in many countries while the cactus has also found uses in manufacturing vegan leather. The slurry of the cactus when mixed with cow dung makes for good, organic fertiliser while also producing biofuel,” he said. After conducting feeding trials on various herbivores in the IGFRI campus, the scientists found that the cactus could be mixed with any kind of fodder to substitute 30% of the dry-matter requirement of the animals and provide enough water content in summer. Prince Jain, a local farmer and resident of Sakrar village near Jhansi, who has grown this cactus on a rocky piece of land near his cowshed, told Mongabay India that he has started feeding it to stray cows he takes care of in the cowshed. “When IGFRI started experimenting with this cactus and distributed the saplings to local farmers, I decided to grow them on a rocky piece of land, unfit for cultivation. These cacti need the least maintenance care and keep growing throughout the year. I mix this with dry fodder, as per the ratio told by the scientists at IGFRI and the stray cows here have developed a taste for it,” said Jain. This plant is now the focal point of research aimed at harnessing its potential for biogas generation, marking a significant stride towards renewable energy amidst the climate change crisis. As per a 2022 report by the Centre for Science and Environment, Uttar Pradesh had 100 compressed biogas projects underway, the highest in the country. It adds that due to the ample amount of organic feedstock available for the production of biomethane, it has the potential to set up around 1,000 such plants in future. But the scenario for the Bundelkhand belt differs significantly from the rest of the state due to its climatic conditions. As the region is not known for growing paddy, a water-intensive crop that majorly contributes to producing the stubble that can be used for the production of biogas, scientists at IGFRI are experimenting with the spineless fodder cactus to produce biogas with the help of ICARDA, a non-profit agricultural research institute that aims to improve the livelihoods of the resource-poor communities across the world’s dry areas. “We identified the accessions best suitable for the Bundelkhand climate as it is a semi-arid climate and these xerophytic plants (plants that are adapted to survive in arid regions like desert) thrive in this environment. We then expanded our area of research to see if the species produces enough methane for commercial uses,” said Palsaniya. To find out if the cactus could generate enough bio-methane, Neha Tiwari, National Associate Scientist at ICARDA, conducted the first experiment to produce biogas from this cactus at ICARDA’s Amlaha campus in Madhya Pradesh last year. The cactus samples from IGFRI were used to produce biogas in a small plant, in natural conditions. Tiwari told Mongabay India that they started with 100% cow dung to get the system started and then started reducing the quantity of cow dung and substituting cactus slurry in small instalments. “We began with 100% cow-dung, then reduced it to 90% with 10% cactus slurry, then reduced the cow-dung further and gradually with 90% cactus slurry and just 10% cow-dung, we got around 60 to 61% of methane, which is a good quantity and can be commercially viable. We get around 65% bio-methane from cow dung but the availability of cow dung in such a quantity is a challenge, especially in the Bundelkhand region,” she said. She added, “We had to keep some quantity of cow dung as it has the bacteria that help in breakdown of the raw material which takes the process further. This is a pretty good quantity in natural conditions. We think it could even be higher if it is done in insulated fermenters.” After the success of the small-scale study in Madhya Pradesh’s Amlaha, IGFRI in collaboration with the state government of Rajasthan, the Ministry of Rural Development, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and ICARDA planted the cacti in a 1.5-hectare farm in Hingonia, Rajasthan, near its biogas plant in 2023. “Since we did not have a biogas plant here in IGFRI, we decided to grow the cacti in Hingonia, a small village near Jaipur. Once they are big enough to be harvested, we will conduct a pilot experiment at a bigger level to understand the success and pitfalls,” added Palsaniya. To make it fitter for use in fodder as well as for biogas production, the scientists at IGFRI are trying to increase the yield and the biomass in the cacti with various experiments at their Jhansi campus. “We are trying the drip-irrigation method and adding fertilisers to the soil to increase the cactus biomass as it will help generate more biogas and will be a better substitute for green fodder. We are in the initial stages of trial and will get more clarity in the coming years,” said Palsaniya. But despite IGFRI’s many efforts to engage and motivate local farmers to grow this species of cactus on their farm fences, farmers and even dairy farmers have not started adopting this. “We distributed free samples to the farmers to grow on their farm fences or on uncultivated land that they own but this is not catching on due to the absence of market linkages and buyers,” he added. Palsaniya added that while the Department of Land Resources is promoting the use of cactus in its Watershed Development Component-Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, farmers here have no access to buyers like companies and government agencies working to promote its use in biofuel. “There is also a lack of awareness and some practical challenges in growing this as the saplings are eaten by stray animals when they are planted in wastelands. But monetising it remains the biggest challenge. When someone like Prince Jain succeeds, many more will follow,” he concluded.

Industrial Pollution

India’s Carbon Market Roadmap Unveiled By CSE

CSE has released its proposed roadmap as part of its new report titled The Indian Carbon Market: Pathways towards an Effective Mechanism. In assessing the PAT scheme, CSE examined emissions reductions in the power, steel, and cement sectors. CSE (Centre for Science and Environment) has released its proposed roadmap as part of its new report, The Indian Carbon Market: Pathways towards an Effective Mechanism. India has pledged to meet its Nationally Determined Contribution targets by 2030. This report collates lessons from compliance-based emission trading schemes worldwide, including those in India, to facilitate the effective operationalisation of carbon markets in India. The goal is to ensure these markets serve their intended purpose of reducing emissions. India has pledged to meet its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets by 2030. It aims for net-zero emissions by 2070, in line with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) guidelines. The country is developing and launching its own national compliance-based carbon market to achieve these ambitious goals. The CSE report analyses four Emission Trading Schemes (ETS) currently in use worldwide: the European Union Emission Trading System, the Korean ETS, the Chinese ETS, and the Surat ETS. It also assesses India‘s Perform, Achieve, and Trade (PAT) scheme, which has set the base for the upcoming Indian Carbon Market scheme by specifying energy reduction targets over three-year cycles. In assessing the PAT scheme, CSE examined emissions reductions in the power, steel, and cement sectors. The findings highlight the challenges in the PAT scheme, including the excess availability of Energy Saving Certificates (ESCerts), lenient targets, and delayed compliance. The newly proposed Carbon Credit and Trading Scheme (CCTS), which aims to build on the PAT framework, must address these shortcomings. Several challenges could affect the proposed new scheme. One significant issue is the low price of carbon credits and low market liquidity. Many global carbon markets, including India’s PAT scheme, initially faced challenges such as low pricing and excess certificate availability. Additionally, the PAT scheme has faced criticism for setting unambitious targets, leading to the overachievement of goals and an oversupply of ESCerts, which has resulted in poor market prices. Kumar emphasises that CCTS must avoid these past mistakes by setting ambitious targets for individual entities and sectors, considering best practices and going beyond existing policies to ensure the market drives genuine progress rather than mere compliance. Another challenge is the dependence on the PAT scheme, which may limit the potential of CCTS and its selection of obligated entities, making the scheme less effective and potentially delaying decarbonisation efforts.

Industrial Pollution

CSIR-NPL Launches Certification Process for Continuous Emission Monitoring

The Continuous Emission Monitoring System (CEMS) is now an important tool for accurately tracking pollution in India’s industries. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) made it mandatory to install CEMS in 2014. However, even though it’s very important, many industries don’t use it as much as they should because they worry about how reliable it is. Regulatory Mandate In 2014, the CPCB made it mandatory for 17 types of highly polluting industries to install CEMS to meet environmental standards. However, problems with data reliability have made it difficult to use these systems effectively for regulation. Certification and Quality Assurance To improve reliability, a strong certification system is necessary. In August 2019, the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research-National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL) was appointed as the national agency responsible for verifying CEMS. Certification Development After five years of work, CSIR-NPL has set up a certification program and testing facilities for CEMS. Now, manufacturers can apply for certification for systems that monitor gas emissions, and certification for systems that measure particulate matter will be available soon. To get certified, manufacturers must submit two identical CEMS units for testing. A committee, which includes different stakeholders, manages the certification process by directing tests and reviewing the results. Proper certification makes sure that CEMS meets both national and international standards. This prevents the use of outdated systems, helping to ensure that pollution data is accurate and reliable. Quality Assurance Framework The certification process includes four levels of quality assurance (QAL-1 to QAL-3) along with yearly checks to keep CEMS functioning well. QAL-1 focuses on proving the equipment’s suitability through thorough testing and audits. A report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in 2022 recommended that India adopt a CEMS certification system similar to European standards. This report highlighted the importance of strong product certification to avoid the use of poor-quality equipment in India. To further improve the quality of CEMS data, CSIR-NPL is working with the CPCB to develop additional quality assurance procedures, aiming to create a complete framework. Facts About CSIR-NPL CSIR-NPL is a top research institute in India. It was set up in 1947. It focuses on measuring and setting standards. It helps industries by making sure their measurements are correct. It works with other countries on measuring standards. The lab has advanced research facilities for many scientific areas.

Director General Office

जमीनी हकीकत: वायु प्रदूषण से निपटने के लिए हो सार्थक पहल, तैयारियों के बीच असल समस्या पर किसी का ध्यान ही नहीं

वायु प्रदूषण की समस्या अब घातक हो चुकी है। अब यह बहस का मुद्दा भी नहीं है। हम लोगों में से अधिकांश लोग जो गैस चैंबर जैसे शहरों में जी रहे हैं, उन्हें मालूम है कि सांस लेने के लिए यह हवा सही नहीं है। लेकिन हम इसके बारे में क्या कर रहे हैं? यहीं से समस्या उतनी ही गहरी हो जाती है जितनी कि इस प्रदूषित हवा में हम सांस लेने के लिए बाध्य हैं। हम यह जानने की कोशिश करते हैं कि आखिर हम साफ नीले आसमान और स्वस्थ फेफड़े की लड़ाई में जीत हासिल क्यों नहीं कर पा रहे हैं। वर्ष 2019 में केंद्रीय पर्यावरण, वन एवं जलवायु परिवर्तन मंत्रालय (MOEFCC) ने राष्ट्रीय स्वच्छ वायु कार्यक्रम (NCAP) की शुरुआत की जिसका मकसद शहरों की वायु गुणवत्ता को सुधारना था। इस कदम का अर्थ यह है कि उच्चतम न्यायालय के बजाय सरकारें वायु प्रदूषण पर कार्रवाई करेंगी। प्रदूषण की समस्या से सबसे ज्यादा जूझने वाले 131 शहरों के लिए साफ हवा के लक्ष्य तय किए गए। इन शहरों को वर्ष 2017 की तुलना में 2024 तक हवा के ठोस प्रदूषित कणों में 20-30 प्रतिशत की कमी लाने का लक्ष्य दिया गया था जिसे बाद में बढ़ाकर वर्ष 2019-20 की तुलना में वर्ष 2025-26 तक 40 प्रतिशत कर दिया गया। आप यह कह सकते हैं कि यह अच्छी बात है। इससे भी अच्छी बात यह थी कि 15वें वित्त आयोग ने 42 शहरों और मुख्य शहरी केंद्रों से जुड़े अधिक आबादी वाले 7 शहरी क्षेत्रों को सीधे तौर पर अनुदान दिया जिनकी आबादी 10 लाख से ज्यादा है ताकि वे वायु प्रदूषण को कम करने की दिशा में काम कर सकें। बाकी शहरों के लिए मंत्रालय ने फंड मुहैया कराए। इस तरह वर्ष 2025-26 तक पांच वर्ष की अवधि के लिए लगभग 20,000 करोड़ रुपये का प्रावधान किया गया। इतना ही नहीं प्रत्येक राज्य सरकार और प्रत्येक शहर को एक प्रदूषण के स्रोतों से जुड़े अध्ययन के आधार पर कार्ययोजना बनाने की जरूरत है ताकि कार्रवाई की प्राथमिकता तय की जा सके। फंडिंग प्रदर्शन से जुड़ी है जिसके लिए शहरों को हवा के प्रदूषण स्तर में सुधार और ‘बेहतर हवा’ वाले दिनों की संख्या में बढ़ोतरी दिखानी होगी। आमतौर पर हवा का गुणवत्ता सूचकांक 200 से कम होने पर ही अच्छा माना जाता है। वर्ष 2022 में मंत्रालय ने स्वच्छ वायु सर्वेक्षण के नाम की रैंकिंग शुरू की थी जिसमें उन शहरों की पहचान की गई जो घातक प्रदूषण को कम करने के लिए कदम उठा रहे थे। असल समस्या यह है कि प्रदूषण दूर करने की सारी तैयारियों में ही हम मुख्य काम को ही भूल गए हैं। मेरे सहकर्मी इस कार्यक्रम का गहराई से अध्ययन कर चुके हैं और उन्होंने पाया है कि सबसे बड़ी समस्या यह है कि NCAP के तहत सिर्फ पीएम10 प्रदूषण को ही मुख्य प्रदूषक माना जाता है। इसका मतलब है कि सारे उपाय सिर्फ पीएम10 को कम करने के इर्द-गिर्द ही घूम रहे हैं, न कि पीएम 2.5 को कम करने पर जोर है जो प्रदूषक कणों का बहुत छोटा रूप है और यह कई बीमारियों को जन्म देता है। ये इतने छोटे होते हैं कि खून में भी घुस जाते हैं और सिर्फ अस्थमा और फेफड़ों को ही नुकसान नहीं पहुंचाते हैं बल्कि दिल की बीमारियां भी पैदा करते हैं। दरअसल, पीएम10 बड़े कण होते हैं जो धूल के कण हैं और ये खुद प्रदूषण नहीं फैलाते। ये समस्या तब बनते हैं जब इन पर विषाक्त पदार्थ चिपक जाते हैं और यह ज्यादातर वाहनों या फैक्ट्रियों जैसी जगहों से निकलते हैं। हमें इस पर ध्यान देना जरूरी है, लेकिन इसके साथ ही हमें सड़कों पर बढ़ते वाहनों से निकलने वाले प्रदूषण, कोयले का इस्तेमाल करने वाली फैक्ट्रियों से निकलने वाले धुएं, कचरे को खुली जगहों पर जलाने से होने वाले प्रदूषण और इनमें से सबसे खराब, खाना बनाने के लिए जैव ईंधन के इस्तेमाल से होने वाले प्रदूषण को भी कम करने के लिए सख्त कदम उठाने होंगे। ये न सिर्फ हवा को दूषित करते हैं बल्कि महिलाओं की सेहत पर भी बुरा असर डालते हैं। धूल जैसे प्रदूषक को नियंत्रित करने पर सबसे ज्यादा ध्यान दिया जा रहा है क्योंकि इसके लिए विशेषतौर पर कोई जिम्मेदार नहीं है जबकि वाहनों से निकलने वाले प्रदूषण के लिए वाहन निर्माता और कोयला जलाने वाले बिजलीघरों के लिए बिजली उत्पादक जिम्मेदार होते हैं। मेरे सहकर्मियों की समीक्षा में पाया गया है कि प्रदूषण नियंत्रण के लिए दिए गए पैसे का 64 प्रतिशत, सड़क बनाने, सड़कें चौड़ी करने, गड्ढे भरने, पानी का छिड़काव और सड़क साफ करने पर खर्च किया गया है। भले ही सड़कों के गड्ढे भरना कितना भी जरूरी हो, लेकिन हम भारतीय लोग जानते हैं कि यह काम कभी पूरा नहीं होगा। यह एक बेकार कवायद है और हैरानी की बात है कि इसे प्रदूषण नियंत्रण के नाम पर किया जा रहा है। यह सही तरीका नहीं है। दूसरी समस्या यह है कि पीएम10 के स्तर में कमी और शहरों द्वारा की गई कार्रवाइयों के बीच कोई वास्तविक संबंध नहीं है। वास्तव में इसका उलटा ही हो रहा है यानी जो शहर प्रदूषण कम करने में सबसे आगे होते हैं, वही कभी-कभी सबसे कम कार्रवाई करते हैं। इस बेमेलपन के कारण नीतिगत भ्रांतियां पैदा होती हैं और हमें यह पता नहीं चलता कि प्रदूषण का सामना करने के लिए क्या किया जाना चाहिए, क्या चीजें काम कर रही हैं और किस जगह काम कर रही हैं। हवा प्रदूषण के मुद्दे को सरकार ने बहुत महत्त्व दिया है, लेकिन इसे केवल कागजी कार्रवाई तक सीमित नहीं रखा जा सकता। हमें वास्तविक कदम उठाने की जरूरत है। यह हमारे सांस लेने वाली हवा से जुड़ी है और हमें पता होना चाहिए कि हवा प्रदूषण सभी को समान रूप से प्रभावित करता है, चाहे वे अमीर हों या गरीब। यह पानी के प्रदूषण जैसा नहीं है, जहां अमीर लोग अपने घरों में पानी की गुणवत्ता बनाए रख सकते हैं या बोतलबंद पानी पी सकते हैं। हवा हर वक्त सांस लेने के लिए जरूरी है और वायु को शुद्ध करने का यंत्र हर जगह की हवा साफ नहीं कर सकता। (लेखिका सेंटर फॉर साइंस एंड एनवायरनमेंट से जुड़ी हैं)