The Hindu Business Line : Traditional sector stands to gain from CDM: Expert

Traditional industries in Kerala are ideally poised to benefit from the opportunities being thrown up by Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), one of the three flexible mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol of immediate relevance to India.

Under CDM, a developed country can take up a greenhouse gas reduction (GHG) project activity in a developing country where the cost of GHG reduction project activities is usually much lower. The developed country would be given credits for meeting its emission reduction targets, while the developing country would receive the capital and clean technology to implement the project.

Reduced emissions

According to Mr R. Harikumar, General Secretary, Society of Energy Engineers and Managers (SEEM), immense potential exists in the traditional industry sector where modernisation process involving technological changes can lead to reduced GHG emissions.

Given its inherent and increasing dependence on fossil fuels for development and its comparatively low efficiency in energy utilisation, the country offers a large potential for making capital out of CDM.

The concept of bundling (grouping a number of similar projects in a particular sector) should help the financially poor units assimilate CDM-compatible technology for modernisation and achieve reduction in GHG emission.

A large number of these units are based on technologies developed during a period when energy efficiency was a secondary criterion of project design and engineering.

CDM project proposals have to go through four stages. The first stage is at the domestic level, where the project gets the approval of the Designated National Authority (DNA) for CDM projects. India has set up the DNA with the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests.

The project is then sent to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Changes. It is then sent for review by the Executive Board of the UN body. The project gets evaluated on every front and is then registered only if it meets all the norms.

Thereafter, certification is done for the reduction in emission and credits are issued. Countries with surplus credits can sell the same to countries with quantified emission limitation and reduction commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. European countries and Japan are the major buyers of carbon credit.

Approved Indian projects

Of the 12 projects registered by the CDM Executive Board (as of July 19, 2005), three are located in India. They pertain to generation of power from mustard crop residues in Rajasthan; a five-MW small hydropower in Himachal Pradesh and thermal oxidation of HFC-23 in Gujarat.

A few States have taken the lead and established nodal cells for promoting CDM. While Andhra Pradesh has appointed the Environment Protection Training and Research Institute, Madhya Pradesh has designated their Pollution Control Board and West Bengal their Renewable Energy Development Agency.

The DNA has accorded host country approval to 78 proposals (as of May 2005). Sixteen proposals are from Karnataka, nine from Rajasthan, seven each from Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu; five each from Punjab and Orissa; four from West Bengal, three each from Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and two each from MP, Maharashtra and Uttaranchal.

Of the 78 proposals, 45 pertain to renewable energy, 20 to energy efficiency, six each to fuel switching and industrial process and one to solid waste management. - V.K.