Emission standards may be imposed on polluting industries

• The Finance Minister’s Budget speech has, for the first time, signaled that polluting industries such as iron, steel, and aluminum will have to conform to emission targets.

Highlights:

• “A road map for moving the ‘hard to abate’ industries from ‘energy efficiency’ targets to ‘emission targets’ will be formulated.
• Appropriate regulations for transition of these industries from the current ‘Perform, Achieve, and Trade’ mode to ‘Indian Carbon Market’ mode will be put in place,” Ms. Sitharaman said in her address.
• While emission norms have usually applied to large industries, her Budget address suggests a tightening of norms for even small and micro-scale industries.
• “An investment-grade energy audit of traditional micro and small industries in 60 clusters, including brass and ceramic, will be facilitated.
• Financial support will be provided for shifting them to cleaner forms of energy and implementation of energy efficiency measures. The scheme will be replicated in another 100 clusters in the next phase”.
• These directives come in the backdrop of the proposed India Carbon Market that has been in the works for a few years.
• A carbon market or an emission trading scheme works as a trading platform where carbon credits, created as a consequence of preventing carbon emissions, can be bought and sold at negotiated prices on a portal.
• The system only works if an industry is required to curb annual emissions.
• Currently, industry in India has no curbs on emissions in lieu of carbon credits but are incentivised to achieve energy efficiency targets via a scheme called Perform, Achieve, Trade that has been operational since 2015.

Prelims Takeaway:

• PAT Scheme
• NGT