Indian Metro Railways asked to register for carbon credits with CDM and GS

New Delhi, India (Metro Rail Today): The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has asked Indian metro rail organisations to register for carbon credits in line with the government’s roadmap to achieve net zero carbon emission status.

The development comes after the parliamentary standing committee on housing and urban affair suggested that government should press upon metro rail organisations to register for carbon credits. Carbon credit is a tradable permit or certificate that provides the holder of the credit the right to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide or an equivalent of another greenhouse gas.

A recent report of the committee outlining the action taken by the government on its recommendations, said that the ministry has informed that it is merely desirable for metro networks to register for carbon credits and not a mandate.

“Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has requested metro rail corporations, who have not yet registered for carbon credits, to explore economic benefits of registration," the report quoted the ministry as saying in its report to the panel.

The committee has said that being the nodal ministry for metro operations, the housing and urban affairs ministry can do much more in this regard and the upcoming metros can be persuaded to register carbon credits aimed at lowering GHG (green house gas) emissions.

“The committee, therefore, recommends the ministry to make GHG emission mandatory for all upcoming metros, apart from persuading metros in operation," it said.

The committee noted that several metro projects have registered for applied for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission under two platforms - Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under UNFCCC and the Gold Standard Registry (GS) to demonstrate emission reduction.

The Delhi Metro has earned 4.4 million carbon credits from CDM and GS projects, while metro rail corporations Kochi and Lucknow have said that the registration for carbon credits is under process. Nagpur Metro will apply for it after the commissioning of the project, Bhopal and Indore on the other hand have informed that their stations and depot are being planned or designed for India Green Building council (IGBC) Platinum rating leading to carbon credits in due course, the standing committee said in its report.

Metro rail corporations of Hyderabad, Kanpur and Agra have, however, not registered for carbon credits. Ahmedabad, Surat, Patna, Bengaluru, Jaipur and Kolkata have not provided any information regarding carbon credits.

“On the other hand Pune and Mumbai metros have merely informed that their projects are under implementation remaining silent on the issue of meeting power requirements from renewables," it said.

According to the committee, since several metros are either using or planning to use renewable energy to a considerable extent to meet their requirements, the committee feel that it is important to ensure that all these metro rail networks are registered for carbon credits so that they earn benefits for being environment friendly.

The panel said that as the registration for carbon credits is not mandatory, several metro networks have not yet registered for it.