Greenhouse emission numbers out and we're clean compared to West

The Times of India , Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Correspondent : TNN
NEW DELHI: The government has revised India's greenhouse gas emission estimates after 13 years and has found one fact unchanged — India has one of the lowest per capita emissions of GHG gases in the emerging economies and at merely 1.5 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per capita it continues to be way below that of the developed countries.

The GHG gas inventory is based on data for 2007 and comes more than a decade after the last one which was prepared on the basis of 1994 data.

In 1994, Indian emissions stood at 1.23 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. They saw a nearly 60% jump to 1.73 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. But despite this leap in emissions, even on gross basis, India's emissions continued to be nearly 1/5th of that US despite being home to nearly 17% of the world population.

While the increase in emissions has been accompanied by substantial industrialization in the country, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, while releasing the report along with environment minister Jairam Ramesh, noted that the emission intensity of Indian economy continued to decline.

The highest contributions to emissions, as expected, continue to be from the electricity production and distribution systems with 37.8% of total emissions being from this sector. The emissions from energy production have increased at 5.6% on a compounded annual growth rate basis. Transport continues to be the second biggest contributor with 7.5% of the emissions arising out of the fossil fuel burnt in transportation which includes aviation, shipping, railways and road transport.

Interestingly, emissions from aviation have increased substantially more when compared with other modes of transport. "The contribution of civil aviation to GHG has almost doubled," Ramesh pointed out while detailing the report.

Overall the combined energy sector contributed 58% of the emissions, industry 22%, agriculture 17% and waste generated 3% of the annual emissions in 2007.

The emissions profile of the economy has been conducted by the Union environment and forests ministry through its Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment. The Network is meant to prepare comprehensive climate change and provide all kind of scientific inputs into decision making by the government.

 
SOURCE : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Home/Environment/Global-Warming/Greenhouse-emission-numbers-out-and-were-clean-compared-to-West/articleshow/5919762.cms
 


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