Ahmedabad becomes second city in country to implement emissions trading scheme

The Gujarat government announced that Ahmedabad has become the second city in India to implement an emission trading scheme (ETS) for particulate matter (PM) pollution in effort to regulate industrial emissions. The ETS is managed by the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) with technical support of Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)'s Climate Labs, Energy Policy Institute Chicago, and professors from University of Chicago, Yale University, and University of Warwick. The trading platform was developed by NCDEXe Markets Limited (NeML). Live trading commenced on September 1 and involved 118 industries including the textile sector.

'Gujarat has been a flagbearer of taking innovative initiatives to ensure a balance between economic development and environment preservation. The ETS for PM, the first in the world for PM emissions, is an example of the unique initiatives being taken by the government of Gujarat to contain its emissions,' remarked Mulubhai Bera, the state's forest and environment minister.

'GPCB's collaboration with leading research centers to introduce markets, backed by rigorous scientific research, has the potential to benefit the regulator, regulated and most importantly, the public,' stated Sanjeef Kumar, principal secretary of the ministry.

The scheme was first launched as a pilot programme in Surat in August 2019. As a result of emissions caps and continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS), the participating industries emitted 20% less PM than other industries. The encouraging results motivated GPCB to expand the scheme's scope to Ahmedabad, where some 400 red category solid-fuel based industries will participate in the ETS-PM project.