GIS FIRM ESRI EXPECTS TECH AWARENESS TO CUT PER CAPITA CARBON FOOTPRINT IN INDIA BY 30 PC IN 7 YEARS

Geographic Information System (GIS) firm Esri India expects technologybased awareness drives to reduce per capita carbon footprint in the country by about 30 per cent in the next 7 years.

According to research firm Statista, the per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in India have soared in recent decades, climbing from 0.39 metric tonne in 1970 to a high of 1.9 metric tonne in 2021.

We are trying to drive a 30 per cent reduction in per capita carbon footprint by 2030. This can be done by shifting to electric vehicles or public transport, switching off electrical appliances when not in use, higher use of biodegradable materials and cutting down packaged food items,” Esri India Managing Director Agendra Kumar said while announcing the launch of its ‘CarbonAware’ app.

He said the app will help in estimating the cause of a higher carbon footprint at the community level. Esri India plans to share this data with local administrations so that they can take measures to educate citizens. As per the data for 2019 published by Statista, the main contributors to India’s carbon footprint were electricity (37 per cent) , manufacturing/industries (22 per cent), transportation (10 per cent) and agriculture (21 per cent). “While India has committed to reducing projected carbon emissions by 1 billion tonne by 2030 and expand its renewable energy installed capacity to 500 GW by 2030, some steps can also be taken at the citizen’s level to reduce carbon emissions from our own day-to-day activities,” Kumar said.

He said the app takes the location of the person and enables the company to analyze data at locality or PIN code level. “We plan to integrate a few other available data sets and provide actionable insights to government bodies,” Kumar said. To limit global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius, which was the central goal of the Paris Agreement, a recent IPCC report insisted that global greenhouse gas emissions would have to be reduced by 43 per cent by 2030.

Source: PTI

In order to equip all state government buildings with solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, Punjab New and Renewable Energy Sources Minister Aman Arora directed heads of all departments to expedite the process to issue NOC so that panels can be installed at the earliest. Chairing a virtual meeting, Arora asked the officials to appoint a senior officer of their departments as a nodal officer to coordinate with Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA) to further smoothen the process of solarising the building of the departments.

The minister said the government is fully committed to strengthening the clean energy infrastructure for ensuring clean environment to people of the state. This environment friendly move will go a long way to decarbonise the power sector as Solar PV has become the most preferred source of renewable power due to the benefits that it offers. Arora said this ambitious project will be executed under Renewable Energy Services Company (RESCO) Mode and PEDA has already installed solar PV of a total capacity of 88MW on the rooftops of various government buildings and these have been successfully generating clean and green energy.

This project will reduce the financial burden of the electricity bills of respective departments by approximately 40 to 50 per cent. The amount saved from electricity bills would be spent on public welfare, he added.

Source: PTI