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Brain-booster / 24 Jul 2020

Current Affairs Brain Booster for UPSC & State PCS Examination (Topic: Decarbonising Transport in Energy Economies Project)

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Current Affairs Brain Booster for UPSC & State PCS Examination


Topic: Decarbonising Transport in Energy Economies Project

Decarbonising Transport in Energy Economies Project

Why in News?

  • NITI Aayog and the International Transport Forum (ITF) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) jointly launched the ‘Decarbonizing Transport in Emerging Economies’ (DTEE) project in India on 24 June.
  • The ambitious five-year project will help India develop a pathway towards a low-carbon transport system through the development of modelling tools and policy scenarios.

Decarbonising Transport Sector

  • Decarbonisation means reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced as a result of transport, including emissions released directly during transport and emissions due to the production of transport - for example emissions from the production of electricity used to power a given mode.
  • Climate change cannot be stopped without decarbonising transport. Globally, transport emits around 23 per cent of the energy-related CO2 that feeds global warming.
  • Total vehicle sales (including motorcycles) increased from about 10 million in 2007 to over 30 million in 2019, and the total number of vehicles on the road is expected to nearly double to about 200 million by 2030.
  • India's transport sector, with the fourth-largest rail network in the world and the thirdlargest global aviation market, presents a huge opportunity, but also challenges in terms of emissions.

India’s Increasing Emissions

  • In India, CO2 emitted per inhabitant was just about a twentieth of that of an average OECD country, yet, India’s transport CO2 emissions are likely to increase by almost 6% annually to 2030.
  • The transport sector of India is the third most greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting sector, where the major contribution comes from the road transport sector. Out of the total carbon dioxide emissions in India, 13% come from the transport sector. These emissions have more than tripled since 1990.
  • India is actively taking a number of measures to tackle its emissions, including newer fuel emission norms as well as the promotion of electric vehicles in the country.
  • NITI Aayog has been at the helm for the promotion of electric vehicles and sustainable mobility through its ‘National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage’.

India’s Promise

  • India’s national climate action plans, known in UN parlance as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), under the Paris Agreement set three major goals— ( increase the share of non-fossil fuels to 40% of the total electricity generation capacity; ( to reduce the emission intensity of the economy by 33 to 35% by 2030 from 2005 level; and ( to create additional carbon sink of 2.5 -3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover.
  • The Paris Agreement sets out a global framework to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.
  • The Paris Agreement is the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate change agreement, adopted at the Paris climate conference (COP21) in December 2015.

Institutional Background

  • The India project is carried out in the wider context of the International Transport Forum’s Decarbonizing Transport initiative.
  • It is part of the Decarbonizing Transport in Emerging Economies family of projects, which supports transport decarbonization across different world regions.
  • India, Argentina, Azerbaijan and Morocco are current participants.
  • DTEE is a collaboration between the ITF and the Wuppertal Institute, supported by the International Climate Initiative of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.