Making India carbon-neutral

When Thomas Isaac, Kerala’s Finance Minister, returned to India after attending the United Nations Climate Change conference in Paris, he wanted to ensure Indian cities were on par with international sustainability standards. Just months later, the Carbon Neutral Wayanad project was launched in the Meenangadi village of Kerala’s Wayanad district. From the conservation of traditional crop varieties and water bodies to banning plastic and reducing the use of soaps and detergents which contain chemicals, the intensive government-backed pilot project is aggressively working towards slashing greenhouse gas emissions in the region.

While this is a great example of what Indian cities ought to be doing, unfortunately the initiative to make our cities ‘carbon-neutral’ remains limited to Meenangadi and certain states such as Sikkim and Maharashtra where plastic has been banned. What we need is a multi-pronged approach, as highlighted in a new report from the Coalition for Urban Transitions, a special initiative of the international New Climate Economy, a global commission on economy and climate.

Experts at the University of Leeds, who drafted the report, assessed over 700 global studies and focussed on three sectors: energy efficiency in buildings, low-carbon transport, and sustainable waste management. Apart from highlighting the massive financial, social and health benefits of investing in low-carbon cities, it also looks into ways of achieving the status.

Going carbon-neutral

So why is going carbon-neutral so important? For starters, such cities will avoid the impacts of dangerous climate change, including more frequent and severe storms, droughts, heat waves and floods. They are also cheaper to live in, as people spend less money on energy for transport, heating or cooling, says Professor Andy Gouldson at Leeds University Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP). “Investing in building efficiency, public transport and small-scale renewables can create new and better jobs. Low-carbon cities are also safer, as they reduce the amount of cars on the road and invest in high quality sidewalks, cycle lanes and public transport. Air pollution associated with coal-fired power plants, waste burning and private cars is also reduced,” he says, adding how Indian cities have many opportunities to address major development priorities.

What India needs

Our cities are growing at a rapid pace and the urban population is expected to increase by 416 million people between 2018 and 2050. Given the country’s rapid rise in urbanisation, we face multiple challenges: from creating compact urban planning plans and mixed-use designs to better transportation and strict regulations for environmental concerns like waste-management.

Keeping in mind the burgeoning housing market, establishing a sustainable infrastructure investment platform is crucial. Immediate interventions at the National Policy level, which will act as a dampener to fast-paced, isolated development are required, says A. Shankar, COO, JLL India. He talks about how investing in new power generation technologies to decarbonise the electricity grid, demonstrating green technologies, enhancing local government fiscal and technical capacities and adopting the same into the current National Development Agenda, will serve as a great platform to regulate low-carbon development.

Mumbai example

Gouldson says India must learn from the successful expansion of the Mumbai railway, where the Maharashtra government, Indian Railways and World Bank worked closely with grassroot organisations to relocate and re-house thousands of informal settlers who lived alongside the track.

Another example is that of the Hyderabad Metro, which the Telangana government will partially finance by capturing a share of the rising land values associated with its construction. For the many cities that may not be able to afford passenger rail, they can emulate the Bus Rapid Transit networks established in Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Pune and Surat.

Ways to get there

Transport: First on the list is creating an extensive rapid transit network. A global comparison of such projects reveals that India has just 3.2 km of rapid transit per million urban residents (counting only cities with a population of more than half million), a third of peers China and Brazil, and less than a twentieth of France.

Aswathy Dilip, senior programme manager, Institute for Transportation & Development Policy, says India needs over an eight-fold increase of its mass rapid transit supply by 2031. “At the present rate, however, it will take at least 3-4 times longer, by when, the need for rapid transit will increase further.”

There are many ways to strengthen the existing system. The inexpensive Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) can provide metro-quality service with the benefit of flexibility. Buses also have features like step-less boarding, off-board fare collection, real-time passenger information. “As more than a third of all the trips in our cities are made by foot or cycle, cities must focus on redesigning streets to support walking and cycling — we need to build at least 32,000 km of wide and accessible footpaths and 16,000 km of safe and convenient cycle tracks over the next 15 years,” explains Dilip. Automobile-centric planning, he says, causes urban sprawl, resulting in longer commutes and more traffic.

Infrastructure: In the construction sector, a mass shift to sustainable technology (such as pre-fab) is needed. Realty players must adopt ‘smart’ infrastructure and demand policies that facilitate subsidies and incentives for adopting energy-efficient, green technology. Implementing National Building Energy Codes will promote energy certifications. Encouraging and incentivising the manufacture and purchase of energy efficient appliances at the commercial and individual level is imperative to bringing about change at the local level, says Shankar. “Encouraging institutions and corporates to minimise the use of paper, electricity; encouraging staff to opt for sustainable modes of transport, are imperative.”

Green cover: While there have been initiatives to go green across Indian cities, they remain scattered and ineffective on the larger scale. Encouraging people to manage waste by source segregation and take up practices like composting will help at the city-level.

Redesigning city layouts and enabling streetscapes by creating kitchen, terrace and community gardens also help increase the overall green cover. In addition, the fast pace of construction must be balanced by interspersing lung spaces between built clusters. “The bright side is that many city administrative bodies have used one or few of these principles already, such as promoting public transport or solar power,” says R. Shobha, National Director, Project Management at Colliers International India.

Best practices

Colombian cities are known for their urban systems, where a huge number of residents walk, cycle or use the efficient public transport. Brazilian cities have successfully integrated waste-pickers into the waste management systems, creating a vibrant recycling trade in plastic bottles, aluminium cans and glass bottles. Kenyan cities are seeing rapid growth in small-scale solar power, giving households reliable and affordable electricity.

JLL’s Real Estate Environmental Sustainability Transparency Index has ranked France, Australia, Japan and UK in the top tier among 40 countries as highly transparent on seven key sustainability transparency tools. India is classified as Semi-Transparent (Tier 3 out of 4 total tiers). Smaller cities such as Dublin, Frankfurt, Oslo, Munich, Copenhagen and Edinburgh are now competing — and these ‘new world cities’ are mid-sized, with strong technology credentials, highly liveable, with favourable infrastructure.