India Climate Change and Energy News - Week of August 31, 2010 to September 5

Climate Change

India will Back Pachauri Irrespective of Criticism

“Indian will back the UN's Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) chief Rajendra Pachauri irrespective of an independent review finding flaws in its structure and suggesting shortening the chair's 12-year term limit, a senior official said Tuesday…. 'The government will back Pachauri as IPCC chief,' said the official from the environment ministry.”

(Sify, 8/31/10)

India Among 40 Countries to Attend Swiss Climate Change Meet

“Switzerland will host an informal summit of 40 countries, including India, on global warming on Friday to discuss modalities for a new Climate Fund that is expected to unblock the stalled negotiations on the issue…. The two-day meeting in Geneva which will be attended by 40 environmental ministers, including India's Jairam Ramesh, is expected to test developing countries' resolve to resist the mounting pressure for new forms of funding, especially through private sources, as proposed by leading industrialised countries, said officials from developing countries.”

(DNA India, 9/1/10)

Framework to Study Climate Change: IITM

“A new framework being developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, will help forecast the climate change better and provide scientific inputs for policy and decision making…. ‘The Earth System Modelling is a comprehensive and integrated framework being developed under the Ministry of Earth Sciences for climate variability prediction. It will be ready in three years. We have started collecting data on the ocean - atmosphere and other components will be added to it,’ said Prof B N Goswami, director of IITM.”

(Times of India, 9/1/10)

Carbon Credits to be Taxable Under Corporate Income

“The Direct Taxes Code (DTC) Bill has said that dealings in carbon credit will be taxable under the new regime. The income through such transactions will attract 30 per cent corporate tax…. ‘Though this tax can, in a way, be considered to be a damper for the industry, it (DTC Bill) has made it clear that carbon credits are a business income. Till now, there was no clarity on carbon credit taxation,’ said KPMG executive director Gaurav Mehndiratta.”

(Business Standard, 9/1/10)

Energy

BEE Now Planning a Super-Efficiency Scale

“Riding on the success of its grading system for consumer appliances, the power ministry’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) is mulling a similar scheme for so-called super-efficient equipment…. If implemented, the programme could bring some of the world’s most energy-efficient consumer appliances to India at cheap rates…. ‘These appliances would be even better than five-star labelled products, which, under normal circumstances, would have hit the market 5-10 years from now and are at present very expensive,’ said Ajay Mathur, director general of BEE…. There would be a ‘global bid for the lowest subsidy requirement’, said Mathur, demanding energy savings of at least 25% over the best efficiency prevalent in India in a specific class. Funding will initially come from the Union government and later from state-run utilities, he added.”

(Live Mint, 9/6/10)

India Emerges as Shale Gas Hub

“India could soon turn into a potential shale gas destination. Even though the work has just begun in India, initial studies by state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation of India (ONGC) on reserve estimation of shale gas in some of the country's sedimentary basins such as Damodar and Cambay basin have revealed a resource potential of about 35 and 90 trillion cubic feet of gas…. This when compared with the existing gas resources in India such as the one from the country's largest gas field of Reliance Industries in the KG basin —estimated to hold some 10 tcf of gas — is indeed a massive reserve of gas.”

(Hindustan Times, 9/1/10)

Manmohan Lays Foundation for Power Equipment Project in Andhra Pradesh

“Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday stressed on the need for bridging the gap between the supply and demand for power to enable the country achieve a higher rate of economic growth on a sustainable basis…. Dr. Singh said that availability of affordable power was of critical importance for country's development. The Central government has drawn up an ambitious programme for addition of power generation capacity in the 11th and 12th Five-Year Plans. Such a large addition meant a much larger demand for power equipment.”

(The Hindu, 9/2/10)

India Needs to Shift from Coal to Other Sources of Energy: IEA

“India will need investment of $4.5 trillion in the energy sector to cut carbon emissions as part of a global initiative to reduce global warming by 2050, the International Energy Agency Executive Director, Nobuo Tanaka, said here Friday…. The United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has said global emissions of carbon dioxide have to come down by 50 percent to limit the increase in average temperate to between 2 to 2.4 degrees centigrade…. 'India would need an investment of $4.5 trillion from here till 2050,' Tanaka said, talking about this best case scenario, which IEA has termed as 'Blue map scenario'.

(Sify, 9/3/10)

More Land to be Freed up for Coal Mining

“The government is likely to dilute tough norms proposed by the environment ministry that would have prevented companies from mining coal in large parts of the country, and boosting the prospects of an initial public offer (IPO) from a state-owned company that has monopoly rights to mine coal for commercial use…. In what is widely seen as a climbdown by the ministry of environment and forests, the so-called ‘no-go’ areas—where mining would have been barred on grounds of danger to the environment—have been scaled down to just 15% of the country's proven coal reserves. Earlier, under strict norms proposed by the environment ministry, as much as 48% of areas with coal reserves would have been declared as out of bounds for mining.”

(Economic Times, 9/2/10)

Environmental Compliance and Governance

India to Start Market-Based Pollution Trading System

“India will soon start a market-based emission trading system to check industrial pollution, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said Tuesday…. To begin with, the system will be implemented in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu as these states contain critically polluted areas with many large industries…. 'The project requires real-time emission monitoring, which is the starting point for a market-based system,' said Ramesh.

(Sify, 8/31/10) 

Babus Oppose Ramesh Over Autonomy to Green Panel

“Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh is facing opposition over the proposed National Environment Protection Authority (NEPA) from an unexpected quarter — bureaucrats of his own ministry. The authority is envisaged to take over environment and forest clearance work from the ministry in addition to enforcing different environmental laws…. Ramesh wanted the authority to be given full autonomy in environment clearance processes whereas the bureaucrats are weary of the idea…. The draft is, however, struck because the bureaucrats want insertion of a clause, which will jeopardises the autonomy to a large extent. If the suggestion of bureaucrats is accepted it would mean that the government will have powers to overrule the authority’s decision.

(Hindustan Times, 9/2/10)

Ban on New Projects in Polluted Sites to Stay Till October: Jairam

“The Environment Minister, Mr Jairam Ramesh, said on Tuesday that the moratorium on new projects in highly polluted industrial clusters will be extended till October 31, as majority of these clusters have failed to submit remediation plan to clean up the sites…. Stating that the ‘polluter must pay’ and take responsibility for remediation of the industrial sites, Mr Ramesh said the Centre was ready to provide funds for setting up common effluent treatment plants at these clusters…. Mr Ramesh also said that the Ministry proposes to start a Rs 1,300 crore project to strengthen the capabilities of Central Pollution Control Board and revamp the State Pollution Control Boards.”

(Hindu Business Line, 8/31/10)

Jairam Targets Ganga Polluters

“Polluting industries along a 500-km stretch of the Ganga between Kannauj and Varanasi might soon face the axe. Minister of state for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday told the chairman of the Central Pollution Control Board and member-secretaries of state pollution control boards to take immediate action to shut all industrial plants spewing their effluents into the river.”

(The Asian Age, 9/1/10)

(Prepared by Andy Gupta, Program Assistant)

Note: The linked articles in this post are provided for informational purposes only and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the India Initiative or of the Natural Resources Defense Council.