During the 27^th Conference of Parties (COP27) held in Egypt in November 2022, a 100-page document containing India’s Long-term Low-Carbon Development Strategy was submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Press Information Bureau of the Government of India issued a press release on the submission of this document on November 14^th, 2022. We have included this press release under the section "Decarbonizing Built-Environment" for the benefit of our readers.

At the outset, LCCF would like to compliment the team headed by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) for the painstaking efforts they have taken in preparing this document. We would like to provide a broad glimpse of the salient features of the document in these columns. However, as many areas dealt within the document are beyond the scope of LCCF, we would therefore restrict our comments on the issues that are directly or indirectly connected with the building and construction industries.

The four key premises on which India’s long-term low-carbon development strategy is based need to be highlighted here. First, India’s historical contribution to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is merely 4%, despite sustaining around 17% of the world’s population. Therefore, India is entitled for a fair share of the global carbon budget and the country needs to be adequately compensated for its carbon credit from the pre-2020 period. Second, it is emphasized that India cannot compromise on its own socio-economic development agenda and its growing energy needs. It is true that currently, the fossil fuel-based power generation capacity of the country accounts for 57.7% of the total capacity¹. However, one cannot expect India’s dependency of fossil fuel-based power to diminish drastically. It is reported that the renewable energy installed capacity in India increased by a whopping 286% in the last 7.5 years²! As the press release has pointed out, ‘the transitions from fossil fuels will be undertaken in a just, smooth, sustainable and all-inclusive manner’.

Third, despite being low carbon emitter on per capita basis, it is indeed creditable that India has voluntarily committed to explore low-carbon development pathways with following commitments:

Fourth, UN Office of Disaster Risk Reduction has ranked India 3^rd amongst the top-10 countries in the occurrence of climate-related disasters from 2000-2019³. Therefore, the country urgently needs to build its own climate resilience on priority. For this purpose, the West needs to help in terms of technology, finance, etc.

Out of the above, we would like to restrict our discussion mainly on point no. 3, as it pertains to the building and construction industries.

Quoting DEA estimate⁴, the MOEFCC report points out the urban Indian population is estimated to increase sharply from 377 million in 2011 to 600 million by 2030. Admitting that urban areas are engines of growth; the report quotes a study which estimated that nearly 75% of India’s GDP will be generated from the urban regions by 2030⁵. However, increased urbanization also leads to an increase in the energy demand. While stating that buildings account for more than 40% of India’s total energy consumption, the report quotes an estimate from the International Energy Agency (IEA)⁶ which projects that the residential electricity demand in India is likely to triple by 2050.

Considering the futuristic scenario projected in the MOEFCC document, it makes great sense to commence efforts to effect sweeping reductions in the energy requirements of buildings and construction, thereby reducing the carbon emissions from the same. The Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction⁷ has suggested a triple strategy for achieving this, namely, reduce energy demand (behaviour change and energy efficiency), decarbonize the power supply (e.g., electrification through renewable sources (solar, wind, etc.), and addressing the embodied carbon stored in building materials.

It is interesting to note that some leading professional organizations of architects and engineers in the world have already come forward and made commitments to reduce both operational and embodied carbon from buildings and construction sectors by adopting the above-mentioned triple strategy. These organizations – to name few – include World Green Building Council, ‘Architects 2030’ (a programme supported by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), International Union of Architects, etc), SE 2050 (a programme supported by the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), The Institution of Structural Engineers, U.K., and many others.

The Indian government, on its part, has prepared the base document highlighting the country’s strategy to meet the challenge of climate change. It is now for the architect and civil engineering fraternity in India to come forward and prepare detailed sector-wise roadmap for the industry by setting voluntary targets. We hope that at least the leading corporate giants connected with steel, cement and construction sectors may take the lead in becoming the torchbearers by setting voluntary targets for reducing the operational and embodied carbons from their respective activities.

There is an urgent need to set new norms, guidance and standards in India on how to reduce both operational and embodied carbon. We would like to deal with this subject separately in the forthcoming issues of LCCF Newsletter.

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