WWF India has developed a “low carbon growth policy tracker” to help assess low carbon policies across the country.
The objective of the study is to outline a low carbon transformation across the states keeping in mind the government’s stated aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 per cent from the 2005 levels by 2020.
The present study covers the states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Delhi, Karnataka and Arunachal Pradesh and looks at reducing greenhouse gas emissions across eight key sectors, including power, transport, industry, buildings, waste, agriculture and forestry.
Sixty qualitative and quantitative indicators were developed to make these assessments.
The report cites concrete examples of environment friendly housing being promoted in states. It cites the example of the Pune Municipal Corporation offering a concession of 10- 50 per cent on the total premium of building certification fees for developers if their project ratings are geared towards green buildings.
The notification of SEZs as green areas in states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, the report claims, has helped the state government provide single window clearances and also provide financial incentives.
It highlights how levying a carbon tax on coal consumption (`50/metric tonne) in all states provides a corpus for the National Clean Energy Fund. Presently, this green cess is being levied on power consumption in energy-intensive industries in states such as Karnataka (five paise/kWh), Gujarat (2 paise/kWh), Maharashtra (5 paise/kWh), Tamil Nadu (5 paise/kWh).
Andhra Pradesh has shown a lead in harnessing energy from waste and is able to achieve 35 per cent of its potential as compared to the all-India average of 3 per cent.