Carbon neutrality in public and semi-public land use

Abstract

Climate change related issues have increased significantly over the course of time. Increasing concentration of GHGs and climate change issues are resulting in political discourse. Even the Former British Prime Minister addressed climate change as a biggest challenge in his book published in 2005 (Avoiding dangerous climate change). Today major causes of climate change are anthropogenic activities. Cities are considered as the major source of GHG emissions same case can be replicated for India. To pursue the environmental sustenance many cities in various parts of the world have adapted strategies. And keeping a goal to achieve carbon neutrality is one of those strategies. Collective response to climate change was addressed in Paris Agreement 2015. Before that the clean development mechanism was introduced in Kyoto Protocol. Since the past 10 years India has progressed quickly in terms of technology, industrialization, productivity and economic stability. According to EDGAR 2016 (Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research) India ranks fourth in terms of GHG emission which was projected to be 2454968 Ktonne. Which is approximately 6% of total GHG emission. And to address this problem on a micro level or at a level where certain technological advancements along with strategies can be implemented. The public and semipublic land use were targeted. The aim of the study is to assess the carbon neutrality in public and semipublic land use. With the objectives of contextualizing the parameters, identifying the study area, and calculating the carbon footprint sequestration within defined boundaries and then classifying them in different plot sizes and developing a pattern or trend of emission. And to achieve the neutrality the final objective is to generate alternate scenario on the basis of different interventions and in how much time they can be achieved. The scientific methodology is used to estimate the GHG emission in terms of CO2 equivalent and similarly the carbon sequestration occurring in the study area. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) refers to four major sectors to be included in national inventories; Energy, Industrial Processes and Product Use (IPPU), Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU), Waste and transportation with each sector further subdivided into several categories. Since the study is limited to only PSP uses within the city the broad sectors such as Industrial Processes and Product Use (IPPU), Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) are not included in the parameters for assessing the carbon neutrality. The Study would cover all uses PSP except land under Defense use. Only Scope 1 and 2 Emission data will be considered. In Transport only organization owned vehicle will be measured. Three major greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide ii (NO2) were limited to the inventory of emissions. Inventory was limited to the level of precision of scope 1 and scope 2 for all sectors. Similarly, estimates of carbon sequestration were limited to soil carbon, above and below soil biomass of home-grown trees and carbon stored in forests and plantations. The study area was divided into 3 categories as per their uses which are education, administration, and health. Then these categories were classified into 3 classes based on the plot size of the campus. Then carbon emission and carbon sequestration were calculated of these 9 classes. Which led to the findings that in education campus size increases the carbon emission per square meter decreases. . The trend of electricity shows increase and transport shows the decrease. In terms of administration the trend of electricity shows increase and transport shows the decrease too. Overall it is seen that as area increase footprint per sqmts increase. Class II of administration have higher footprint comparatively because the area have higher density of buildings compare to the other classes. In terms of health the trend of electricity shows increase and transport shows the increase too. Overall it is seen that as area increase footprint per sqmts decrease. Class II of health have higher footprint comparatively because the area also accommodates students have an education facility inside. To achieve the carbon neutralty or to assess how much of the carbon can be offsetted and sequester various scenarios were generated. The main emission in every class is electricity and most of them are conventional source and to reduce that the solar rooftop panels are proposed but at different of total roof and how much total an area has potential to reduce. And how much they have to look outside the defined boundaries. In terms of transport how much of the vehicle can be updated or replaced or low emission vehicle and reduce the emission next five to ten years. For the type of waste if the waste is paper then how capacity of WPR units are required and for food waste how much of the food digester are required. If all the interventions are implemented the how much waste is generated and some part of those intervention is implemented then how much of the carbon is offsetted and the possible time required and capital require to achieve those intervention.