ASSESSMENT OF GHG MITIGATION AND CDM POTENTIAL IN URBAN TRANSPORT SECTOR OF CHANDIGARH

Abstract

The growing cities, sharp increasing traffic, rapid economic development and industrialization, and higher levels of energy consumption has resulted in congestion and pollution in cities and increase of GHG load in the urban environment. It is also accepted that automobiles have emerged as a critical source of urban air pollution especially in the developing world. Realizing the gravity of the problem, steps are being taken to introduce better technologies, better fuel quality, shift to environment friendly fuels, and public transport system for the control of environmental pollution in urban areas. This study explores the potential for greenhouse gas mitigation in the transport sector in Chandigarh city of India under two scenarios i.e. BAU and BES. The estimated GHG emission (including CO, N20 and CO2) from motor vehicles in Chandigarh has increased from 1065 Gg in 2005 to 2486 Gg by 2011. It is expected that GHG load under BAU scenario would be 4014 Gg by 2020. Under BES scenario, 30% of private transport has been transformed to public transport, GHG load was possibly reduced by 520 Gg. It was observed from the study that a major contribution of GHG load in Chandigarh was from 4-w i.e. about 50% up to 2011. But this trend is showing a decline after 2011, which is showing a constant trend even up to 2020. An additional scenario was developed to view the effect of replacing diesel buses to CNG buses. It was observed from this scenario that fuel change from diesel to CNG in transport sector iii is showing positive results for other pollutants like Particulate Matter and to a very little extent to CO but in case of GHG pollutants like CO2 and N20 a huge increase in GHG load was observed from the study. Under this scenario, an increase of 173 Gg of GHG load was estimated if all the diesel buses would be transformed to CNG buses by 2020. Overall, it can be concluded from this scenario that fuel transition from diesel to CNG is not a GHG friendly technology.