GS Paper 3
Syllabus: Infrastructure (Energy)/Conservation, Environmental Pollution and Degradation
Source: TH
Context: Given the significant impact that cities have on the environment, low-carbon cities are crucial to mitigate the effects of climate change.
How are cities impacting climate?
- In 2020, cities across the world dumped 29 trillion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.
- This CO2 along with other GHGs poses a serious health hazard and also manifests as extreme weather events, leading to the loss of lives and livelihoods.
Challenges ahead: By 2050, 7 billion people will be living in cities.
Need of the hour – A just energy-system transition:
- This could reduce urban CO2 emissions by around 74%.
- The transition must be implemented both on the demand and the supply sides.
Mitigation options on the supply side: Include phasing out fossil fuels and increasing the share of renewables in the energy mix, and using carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies.
On the demand side:
- Using the Avoid, Shift, Improve framework – reducing and substituting the demand for fossil fuels with renewables.
- Addressing residual emissions in the energy sector by implementing CO2 removal (CDR) technologies.
Why is a just energy transition needed?
- A one-size-fits-all approach is unlikely to ensure a socially and environmentally just transition.
- For example, transitioning to renewable energy sources could disproportionately affect communities and fossil fuels-dependent sectors in developing economies.
- Other concerns include land dispossession related to large-scale renewable energy projects, spatial concentration of poverty, gendered impacts, etc.
Significance of Indian states to achieve energy transition goals:
- States as spheres of implementation: The realisation of national goals often depends on how they are aligned with State priorities and capabilities.
- States as laboratories of policy innovations: For example, PM KUSUM is a national adoption of successful State efforts on solarizing agriculture.
- The legacy issues must be addressed at the State level: Such as high losses, unreliable supply and service quality in the electricity sector.
Good news: With rapid advancements in clean energy and related technologies and reduced cost, the economic and technological barriers to implementing low-carbon solutions have been crossed.
Way ahead:
- Transitioning to low-carbon/net-zero cities: It is necessary to decarbonise urban systems.
- Sector-coupling approach: Integrate mitigation and adaptation options in multiple sectors, including energy, buildings, transportation, industry, and urban land use.
- A State-level framework: To understand plans, actions, and governance processes and to broaden the transition discourse.
- Different strategies for different cities: The considerations are a city’s spatial form, land-use pattern, level of development, and the state of urbanisation.
- The strategies include energy-efficient services and infrastructure, people-centric urban design, and implementing building codes while gradually shifting to low-emission construction materials.
- For a just energy transition: The energy supply needs to be balanced against fast-growing energy demand (due to urbanisation), the need for energy security and exports.
- Mitigation and adaptation responses: Must engage multiple stakeholders in energy governance and decision-making, scaling up investments and capabilities, etc.
Conclusion:
- In the upcoming G20 forum, India is planning to propose a multiple energy pathways approach to accommodate the diverse development trajectories of countries.
- The diversity of India’s States, which necessitates multiple pathways, will determine its own domestic energy transition.
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