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Promoting low carbon transPort in india
Low Carbon City:
A Guidebook for City Planners and Practitioners
Box 1: Decomposition of decarbonisation
Decarbonisation happens across scenarios as the energy intensities
decline over time due to
technological improvements and the changing structure of the economy, resulting in a decoupling of
economic growth and energy consumption. The decline is faster in the case of sustainable scenarios,
as the demand for intermediate goods and services reduces because of sustainable practices. An
alternative way of looking at two pathways for achieving a low carbon society is simplified by the
‘extended Kaya identity’. The change in CO
2
emissions from a base year is derived using the formula:
Change in CO
2
= Demand effect (D) + Energy intensity effect (E/D) + Carbon intensity effect (C/E)
+ Measures effect (C’/C)
Where D = driving forces (service demand of final and intermediate consumption), E = Energy
consumption, C’ = CO
2
emissions without measures in the energy transformation sector, and C =
CO
2
emissions with measures in the transformation sector.
Achieving a low carbon
society in Asia is a challenge, as the region consists of diverse and rapidly
growing economies that are undergoing multiple transitions in income, demographics, infrastructures, and
institutions (Kainuma et al., 2012). The challenges of meeting development goals, resource constraints,
and climate change adaptation add to the complexity. Therefore, an exclusive, climate-centric vision could
prove expensive, as it would create a large mitigation and adaptation ‘burden’. Instead, the focus can
move toward a ‘development-centric’ framework in order to reduce conflicts and deliver greater global
and national benefits. There are several pathways to reaching a low carbon society. Each pathway has its
own co-benefits. The challenge is to reach the objective with minimal costs.
In addition
to being energy efficient, a sustainable low carbon development will need to integrate
equity and quality of life. While the harder measures will involve controlling energy service demands in
sectors, and enforcing stringent taxes, a more sustainability oriented approach that involves measures
that
integrate resource efficiency, environment improvements and social benefits will lead to better
outcomes. The sustainable development pathway would reduce mitigation costs and create numerous
opportunities to realise the co-benefits without having to sacrifice the original objective of enhancing
economic and social development. Recent modelling exercises show that it is possible to realise low
carbon scenarios consistent with a 2°C temperature rise. The LCS can be achieved in a more sustainable
manner by enhancing investments in infrastructures and end-use efficiency improvements, which ensure
development and other co-benefits along with improving competitiveness of national renewable energy
options (Kainuma et al., 2012).
Transition to low carbon societies cannot be achieved overtime. Policy makers need to assess the future
demands, and develop scenarios that look at the technological and behavioural changes likely to happen.
Priority actions need to be identified for choices that deliver these local benefits in the next 5 to 10 years,
and also lead to the long-term progressive decoupling of CO
2
with city growth.
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Promoting low carbon transPort in india
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