KYOTO PROTOCOL HOLDS OPPORTUNITIES FOR INDIA

Financial Times, March 1, 2005

The general secretary of the Energy Conservation Society (ECS), S.
Ratnakumar, has said that the Kyota Protocol has opened up enormous
opportunities for India to initiate clean development projects that will
not harm the environment.

He was presenting a paper on Kyota Protocol and energy and environmental
conservation' at a State-level workshop on energy and environment'
organised by the ECS here today in association with the S.N. College
Post-graduate Students Forum.

Mr. Ratnakumar said that by becoming a signatory to the Protocol, India
would be able to earn credits and sell them as Certified Emission
Reductions (CERs) to developed countries that were not able to fulfil
their commitments to (Greenhouse Gas) GHG reduction. The Kyoto Protocol,
which came into existence on February 16, 2005, sets legally binding goals
for bringing down the emission of heat-trapping GHGs, which include carbon
dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluro carbons and sulphur hexa
fluoride.

(The text of the Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted at the third session of the Conference
of Parties to the UNFCCC at Kyoto in Japan on December 11, 1997.)

The opportunity will help the Indian industry to make profits by investing
in less pollutant and clean renewable projects based on solar, wind, small
hydroelectric and biomass energy sources, he said.

Rise in sea level

Mr. Ratnakumar pointed out a scientific prediction that by 2050 the sea
level would increase by 30 cm if global warming continued unabated and by
80 cm by the turn of next century. During the last 100 years, the
temperature of the earth has increased by 0.6 degrees centigrade and it is
getting warmer at an alarming rate compared to the temperature changes in
the last 8,000 years. Such a situation will result in displacement of
millions of people.

Data collected during the last 40 years show that the emission of GHGs is
not only raising the temperature of the land and the sea. The Arctic ice
has started melting and this in turn could lead to many of the small
islands getting washed away. Acute drinking water shortage will also be
experienced. Tsunamis can become a common feature.

Mr. Ratnakumar pointed out that weather-related mortality rates would
increase and variation of temperatures could bring about infectious and
respiratory diseases. If GHGs are not controlled, many species of animals
and plants will simply vanish.

So renewable energy sources have to be tapped and used. He called for the
promotion of energy efficiency equipment through the energy-labelling
concept.

Mr. Ratnakumar said that in order to control the emission of GHGs, the ECS
would be undertaking energy conservation awareness programmes among the
masses.The Director of the Agency for Non-conventional Energy and Rural
Technology, Madhu Mangal, inaugurated the workshop.