| Sourced From Times of India |
Ahmedabad : Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) member and IIM-A professor Priyadarshi Shukla will be travelling to Geneva
in July to attend an IPCC conference. On his air ticket, it is clearly mentioned that Shukla’s flight with Air India and British Airways will be responsible for letting off 2,661 kg of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere called carbon footprint that contributes towards global warming.
The IPCC will trade off the total carbon dioxide emitted because of all its members flying to Geneva and purchase carbon credit’ certificates generated due to a variety of emission reduction projects available with the European Union Emission Trading System (EU ETS) the largest multi-national emissions trading scheme in the world. These credit certificates will be of equivalent value of technology implemented somewhere in the world, that wholly or partly decrease an equivalent amount of CO2 generated because of IPCC members’ air travel.
Like that of Shukla, IPCC also calculated carbon footprints for each of the flights both domestic and international ones originating and destined for Ahmedabad along with other major cities of the country.
The study shows that an economy class travel between Delhi and Ahmedabad will be responsible for release of 221 kg of carbon into the atmosphere. To offset this carbon dioxide release, the airline will have to buy carbon credits worth Rs 332 from the carbon credit market, the study says. The motive behind this is asking passengers and even airline companies to pay for the carbon dioxide it was responsible to be released into the atmosphere.
In February this year, Japanese airline JAL group started offering via its website a carbon offset programme’ which enables passengers using its flights to voluntarily offset the CO2 gases generated by their trips by buying carbon credits.
“The money would be passed on to companies or groups that has utilised green technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to the amount released by the flights of IPCC members. Once these carbon credit certificates are obtained and destroyed, it is understood that we have contributed towards reducing carbon from our planet,” claimed professor Shukla.
Shukla added, “With rising income, travellers are shifting to faster modes of transport like air travel. It is a matter of concern as it leads to chunks of greenhouse gases released because of aviation fuel. Domestic air traffic in India in 2007-08 was responsible for emitting 9.29 metric tonne of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere after burning 287 million tonne of jet kerosene. This was twice the amount oil consumed by the 1.1 billion population of the country.”
Carbon footprint – Measuring release
EU Emission Trading System (EU ETS) rates for economy class air travel carbon footprint in India
Return air travel /Emission of CO2(in kg) /CO2 market value(Rs)
Mumbai-Ahmedabad 156 234
Delhi-Ahmedabad 221 332
Ahmedabad-London 1,576 2,364
Ahmedabad-New York 2,950 4,425
Delhi-Mumbai 332 498
Delhi-London 1,545 2,318
Delhi-New York 2,706 4,059
ANNUAL AIR TRAVEL IN COUNTRY:
International / Domestic
Billion passenger kilometres 4,264 39.6
Fuel used (million tonne) 287 2.98
CO2 emmissions (million tonne) 864.7 9.29
