Emissions trading scheme to go live in Gujarat from Sept 16

Over 170 industrial units in Gujarat will begin live trading of particulate matters under the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) from September 16, a move aimed at reducing costs for the industry in curbing pollution without reducing the environmental goals, officials said.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani had on June 5 launched the ETS formally to mark the World Environment Day with the participating industries carrying out mock trading over the last three months to understand its modalities.

The Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) said the ETS is a market-based approach used in controlling pollution "by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants".

Under the scheme, a limit would be set for an industrial unit on the amount of pollutants emitted.

These industrial plants can then decide about how to allocate the total permissible emissions among themselves by buying and selling emission permits, a release by the GPCB said.

Plants that find it cheap to cut pollution can make large reductions while selling permits to those for whom reducing emission is expensive, it said.

This flexibility can dramatically reduce costs without affecting environmental goals, the GPCB said, adding that this is the first of its kind scheme in the world to control pollution that can become a model for other states to follow.

"The ETS initiative will help us understand the potential that reduced emissions will have on compliance and regulatory costs," GPCB chairman Rajiv Kumar Gupta said.

The use of continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS) under the scheme can enable the use of better targeted regulatory restrictions and greatly improve the information and ability of regulators to monitor industry, the GPCB said.

A pre-launch workshop for the same was organised on Wednesday at Kevadiya in Narmada district by the GPCB with experts and researchers from Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL) and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC) addressing a gathering of industrialists.