New Delhi: India’s first civil society platform for GHG estimation and analysis – the GHG Platform India – was launched on 15th July 2016 in New Delhi. The platform provides national estimates for GHG emissions from the Energy, Industry, Waste and Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sectors from the years 2007-2012 by accounting CO2, CH4 and N2O gases. These estimates are publicly available on the platform website (http://ghgplatform- india.org) allowing users to view and download data sets.

The platform is expected to be a valuable tool for the government, think thanks, civil society, the public and media to understand development trends and track emissions. The data will also be useful to drive strategic decisions around GHG reduction and climate-friendly policies.

To ensure transparency, the platform website provide information about methodology used for analysis, assumptions and complete data sets. It is also envisaged that the data will be updated on a regular basis along with other key information.

The platform comprises eminent institutions such as Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability South Asia, Vasudha Foundation and World Resources Institute (WRI) India in addition to a few sectoral experts. The platform was jointly conceptualised by Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation and by Vasudha Foundation, which also acts as the Secretariat for the platform. The platform draws its inspiration from a similar civil society initiative in Brazil, the “System for Estimation of Emissions of GHG” (SEEG).

Dr Arunabha Ghosh, CEO, Council on Energy, Environment and Water said, “CEEW has developed an independent estimate of India’s industrial emissions, using a bottom-up approach by assessing a wide range of fuel use, industrial process, and product use from more than two lakh industrial units. For a more robust and comprehensive GHG inventory assessment for industries, there is a need for an industry-wide survey focusing on energy consumption and bringing hitherto unregistered units into the fold of this exercise. This degree of rigour and transparency is essential if India has to defend its interests at climate negotiations.”

Mr. Mohd. Sahil Ali, Research Scientist from the Center for Study of Science, Technology & Policy, said “CSTEP has analysed emissions from energy production and use in the Electricity Generation, Transportation, Other (Residential, Commercial, Agriculture and Fisheries) and Fugitive Emission sectors. Together these constitute over 60% of India’s GHG emissions. The activity data and other assumptions have been made transparent and public sources of information have been used. The exercise forms the basis to measure India’s climate performance and stimulate data-driven policy decisions. For example, our analysis shows that despite all the renewable addition, emission intensity (kgCO2e/kWh net generation) of India’s electricity sector has increased between 2006 and 2013 owing to high growth in relatively less efficient fossil-based captive electricity generation.”

Mr. Emani Kumar, Deputy Secretary General – ICLEI (Global) and Executive Director – ICLEI South Asia said, “Through this freely accessible public platform, we are happy to share the GHG emission estimates for the waste sector, prepared by ICLEI South Asia. Treatment and discharge of industrial wastewater contributes to 62% of GHG emissions from the country’s waste sector while domestic wastewater and solid waste disposal contribute 22% and 16% respectively. The disaggregated detailed information made available through this platform is useful to prioritize technologies for waste management and to identify those sectors which need our immediate attention.”

Mr. Krishan Dhawan, CEO of Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation said, “The GHG Platform India’s release of the 2007 to 2012 national GHG emission estimates and the launch of its website marks an important milestone for the platform as well as civil-society collaboration in the field of climate change. The transparency that the platform has been able to instil in preparing the emission estimates vastly increases their utility and robustness. It is expected that institutions all over India will use these to better inform policy choices and design solutions that mitigate climate change.”

Mr. Srinivas Krishnaswamy, CEO of Vasudha Foundation said, “We are in an era where we have to dig deep into different sectors for mitigating our carbon emissions and this database is an essential first step, for us to get an understanding of emissions by sector in detail, particularly, the sub-sector information. I am happy that, such an initiative by civil society groups to make available sector specific emission estimates at a more granular level, for a time series of years, is made available for easy access.”

Mr. Vivek P. Adhia, Sr. Associate, Climate – WRI India said, “The initiative has been key to facilitating a strong and robust national emission estimations process. With greater transparency built-in by using publicly available data sources, this platform supports increased collaboration between civil society and policy makers to effectively manage overall greenhouse gas emissions.”

The launch of the website was followed by an expert panel discussion that underscored the urgent need for accurate and credible GHG emission data sets to better inform policy action. Panellists also provide concrete suggestions to enhance user engagement, which the platform will take forward. For more information about the platform, please see the attached brochure.