NEED NOT BE A DIRTY AFFAIR

The potential to reduce emissions from India's coal-based thermal power plants is huge, and it needs more than just shifting to efficient technologies.

- PARTH KUMAR and KUSHAGRA GOYAL

THE SUPREME Court has recently asked the Union Ministry of Power to convene an urgent meeting with the country's top energy regulators-the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) and the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC)—to prepare an action plan for slashing greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector. The court's directive came in response to a petition by Ridhima Pandey, a 17-year-old climate activist from Uttarakhand, who urged the judiciary to take action against climate change through stricter measures. Acknowledging that climate change has ascended as one of the most existential global predicaments, wielding profound ramifications beyond mere environmental degradation, escalating temperatures, erratic weather patterns, the court stated: “it is compelling for individuals and institutions to converge and adopt a coordinated effort to effecting deal with the emerging situations. We now propose to consider the impact of power generation and the consequential carbon emissions on climate change.” The court had asked the ministry and the electricity regulatory bodies to submit the action plan by August 19. While the authorities have sought more time to formulate a decarbonisation plan, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a research and advocacy organisation in Delhi, has prepared a roadmap that may offer valuable guidance.

The report, titled "Decarbonizing the coal-based thermal power sector in India", analyses the current and future emissions from coal-based power plants, which are largely responsible for power sector emissions, and identifies significant opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from these plants. The report states that decarbonising the thermal power sector in India could lead to a reduction of over 30 per cent in GHG emissions by 2031-32. This is more than the combined emissions from two other hard-to-abate sectors: iron and steel, and cement.