ENVIRONMENT-PARIKH-CARBON EMISSION

Gurdip Singh

Copenhagen commitments: India kicks off the process

New Delhi, Jan 20 (UNI) In fulfillment of the commitment given to the global community at the Copenhagen Conference to bring down carbon emissions by 25 per cent by 2020, India today kicked off this process with the expert group on Low Carbon Emissions set up by the Planning Commission commencing its work. The first meeting of the expert group, headed by former Planning Commission member Kirit Parikh, was held at the Yojna Bhavan.Briefing newspersons on the objectives of setting up the expert group, Dr Parikh said the Committee would draw out a roadmap relating to various sectors and ministries on achieving the Copenhagen targets by the country. The interim report would be submitted in April this year and the final report by September 2010. Dr Parikh said data available so far relating to climate change issues was mostly from foreign sources and the committee’s endeavour would be to collect data on various parameters relating to greenhouse gas emissions. Saying that huge investments would be required to bring down carbon emissions by 25 per cent by 2020, Dr Parikh said precise estimates were not available in this regard. The expert committee would make a study of the existing literature in this regard andprovide estimates as far as possible. He said the committee would set up various sub-groups to go into the question of reducing the emission levels. Dr Parikh said the committee would take a long term view of the issues and not confine itself to the Eleventh Plan (2007-11) horizon. It’s perspective would be to look at the Twelfth or 13th Plan period. The body would also look at emissions level in the agricultural sector, though he admitted that bringing down methane levels was a difficult task. Dr Parikh said the country has been switching over to green technologies to bring down carbon emissions. In this regard, he said in 1971 India’s emission level was 8.33 per cent, which has been brought down to 0.17 per cent. Dr Parikh clarified that there was no firm commitment given by India at Copenhagen, but a reiteration of the attempt and efforts that the country would make to achieve the goal of 25 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The members of the committee are as follows: Nitin Desai, former Under secretary General, Economic & Social Affairs, United Nations; Mr Ajay Mathur, Bureau of Energy Efficiency member; Mr Rakesh Nath, Central Electricity Authority; Mr R S Paroda, former DG, ICAR; Dr Amit Mitra, FICCI; Mr Chandrajit Banerjee, CII; Mr Jamshed Irani, Tata Sons; Mr Jamshed Godrej, CII, Climate Change Council, Mr Pavan Goenka, SIAM; Mr Tulsi Tanti, Suzlon Energy; Mr Deepak Puri, Moser Baer; Mr Prem C Jain, Green Building Council; Mr Anand Patwardhan, IIT Mumbai; Dr Ambuj Sagar, IIT, Delhi; Mr Navroz Dubash, Centre for Policy Research; Mr D Raghunandan, Delhi Science Forum; Mr Anshu Bharadwaj, C-STEP, Mr Girish Sant, Prayas; Ms Ritu Mathur, TERI; Mr Jagdish Kishwan, PCCF; Mrs U Sankar, Madras School of Economics; Mr Varad Pande, Ministry of Environment & Forests and Mr Arunish Chawla.