Draft India Cooling Action Plan inadequate, limited in scope: CSE

A green body Tuesday dismissed as "grossly inadequate" and limited in scope the draft India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP), which lists out actions which can help reduce the cooling demand and help in reducing emissions.

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) also strongly asked for immediate revision of the ICAP document to address the serious gaps which it said if not rectified now can lock in "irreversible" energy guzzling.

Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan Monday released a draft India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) during World Ozone Day celebrations.

India is the first country in world to develop such a document - ICAP, which also gives thrust towards looking for synergies in actions for securing both environmental and socio-economic benefits.

The ICAP provides a 20-year perspective (2017-18 to 2037-38) to address the cooling requirements across sectors and ways and means to provide access to sustainable cooling for all, the CSE said.

"If we are planning to provide 'Sustainable Cooling' and 'Thermal Comfort for All', we cannot ignore 90 per cent of the Indian population's need to have thermal comfort and also the requirements of a range of other services including agricultural cold chains, provision of safe vaccines, and many other services that require cooling to function.

"These have remained outside the scope of the ICAP," said Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director-research and advocacy, CSE.

Roychowdhury further added,"This lack of planning can completely upset the energy budget of the country.

"At the same time, the ICAP has not indicated the benchmark for thermal comfort that needs to guide energy efficiency measures for all users of active as well as passive cooling."