Important Points Of Climate Change

1. India's per capita energy consumption (2006 figures) question is at 51 kg oil equivalent compared to the world average of 1818 kg oil equivalent. China has a per capita energy consumption of 1433 kg oil equivalent, which has been rapidly rising since 2002, and the US average of 7778 kg oil equivalent. The annual growth in India's per capita energy consumption has been minimal.

2. India's submission to reduce the emission intensity of its economy by 20 to 25 per cent by 2020 can he bettered through these two options. India has already announced its national solar mission and an enhanced energy efficiency mission is in the works.

Point You Should Know

Carbon Storage and Sequestration Potential of India’s Forests and Tree Cover:-

• India's Forest Cover accounts for 20.6% of the total geographical area of the country as of 2005. In addition, Tree Cover accounts for 2.8% of India’s geographical area2 .

• Progressive national forestry legislations and policies have transformed India's forests into a significant net sink of CO₂, From 1995 to 2005, the carbon stocks stored in our forests and trees have increased from 6,245 million tones (mt) to 6,662 mt, registering an annual increment of 38 mt of carbon or 138 mt of CO₂ equivalent.

Mitigation Service by India's Forest and Tree Cover:-

• Estimates show that the annual CO₂ removals by India's forest and tree cover is enough to neutralize 11.25% of India’s total GHG emissions (C0₂ equivalent) at 1994 levels.

• This is equivalent to offsetting 100% emissions from all energy in residential and transport sectors; or 40% of total emissions from the agriculture sector. Clearly, India's forest and tree cover is serving as a major mode of carbon mitigation for India and the world.

Carbon Stocks in the Future:-

• India is one of the few developing countries in the world that is making a net addition to its forest and tree cover over the last two decades. Based on actual and projected trends of investments in the forestry sector, we present three scenarios of the future carbon stocks in the forest and tree cover of India.

• In the first scenario, the carbon stocks in India's forest and tree cover decrease at the rate of the world average and the total carbon stored in India's forests in 2015 will decrease to 6,504 mt.

• In the second scenario, the carbon stocks continue to increase at the historical rate of the last decade (0.6% p.a.). And the total carbon stored in India's forests in 2015 will increase to 6,998 mt.

• In the third scenario, the carbon stocks increase at a rate higher than the historical rate of increase and the total carbon stored in 2015 will increase to 7,283 mt. This is the path that we intend to tread in India.

• Computations for the third scenario are based on a series policy initiatives on Sustainable Management of Forests (SMF) and A forestation and Reforestation (A&R), additional resources like Forest Restitution Fund5 with US$ 2.5b , a policy to include forestry related activities in the flagship employment scheme of the country and introducing new forestry related schemes on components such as capacity building in the forestry sector ..

Value of Mitigation

• Putting a conservative value of US$ 5 per tonne of CO₂ locked in our forests; this huge sink of about 24,000 mt of CO₂ is worth US$ 120b, or Rs 6, 00,000 crores. Incremental carbon under scenario three will add a value of around US$ 1.2b, or Rs 6,000 cores every year to India's treasury of forest sink, assuming a value of US$ 7 per tonne.