The rural-urban divide

What can we do to reduce the carbon footprint?

October 15, 2015 05:30 pm | Updated 08:03 pm IST - MADURAI:

Illustration: S. Belmann

Illustration: S. Belmann

Last time we looked at the greenness of the grid and the reasons behind the added weight of Carbon dioxide emissions associated with the units of electricity we consume at home. This time, let us see what we can do about it.

An “average” Indian household consumes 1/20th the amount of power an American household does. Also an average American household uses about twice as much as an average European household with comparable standards of living. So an obvious answer might be to say, let us not do anything except to ask the Americans to be more efficient.

But overall, the Indian residential sector takes up a third of the total power consumption. Moreover, India has the fastest growing residential power use in the world. So, what can we do?

Let us start with asking who are “we”? To use the census data: In India, we are young and poor. So let’s take two case examples: a rural poor and an urban middle class youth.

The Rural Youth

Senthil lives in a home with an electrical connection. He is lucky as he lives in Tamil Nadu, where over 75% of the rural households have electricity. If he lived in Bihar, where less than 20% of rural households are electrified, an electrical light would be a wonder. As it is, most of his family’s energy use comes from the wood they burn to cook their food or heat their water. Since his house has electricity, his TV and his light is connected to the grid, but during the frequent power cuts, his family draws light from the kerosene lamp. The many schemes announced by the government have ensured that the house is littered with appliances which make his family’s life a little easier. So what should Senthil’s family do to lighten their footprint? Is that even a fair question?

The world is asking India to lower its share of carbon emissions, and there is not a doubt that Senthil’s family and many like his are adding to the carbon footprint. But Senthil’s family is probably focussed on replacing their wood-burning cookstove with a gas stove and hoping for fewer power cuts, and perhaps getting used to paying an electric bill.

The climate friendly actions to be taken here are to make the grid that serves Senthil and others like him less emitting and to charge rural households for their power while connecting them to a Direct Benefit Transfer scheme. This ensures they become conscious of their consumption, empowers them to demand better service (as they will be paying for it) while ensuring they are financially kept sound. Lastly, by making sure Utilities are paid allows them -- in theory -- to invest in infrastructure that could include greener power sources like solar.

The Urban Youth

Sunita lives in a tiny neighbourhood in Mumbai. Her flat has two bedrooms (one with an AC) and two bathrooms – both with heaters. Her mother cooks on a gas stove and their family has a fridge. The bulk of their electricity use is in the water heaters and AC, but their lighting system takes a fair share as well. There is plenty they can do to lower their power bill. First, they could replace their incandescent bulbs with LED lighting – that investment would payback in a few months (LED lights save substantially more power for the same level of lighting than even the ubiquitous CFL tube lights).

Next, they could change their AC unit into a more “energy efficient” unit. They could also look closely at the size of the unit relative to the size of the room. Switching all appliances to the most efficient category also has quick paybacks – depending on the usage. They could install a solar water heater or perhaps they could ask their apartment association to paint their terrace white or in any kind of reflective light. They could also plant trees – trees store carbon dioxide.

In the future, as the rural poor migrate and transform into the urban middle class, as the Senthils become the Sunitas, an important question will be how to make that shift Carbon Efficient? India has pledged to the world to cut the carbon intensity of her GDP by 35% by 2030. A good deal of the heavy lifting will come from increasingly powering the grid with solar/hydro/wind/natural gas/nuclear rather than coal. However, making the Senthils and Sunitas conscious of their Carbon footprint of their lives is essential – that’s what this column is about.

(Climaction is a fortnightly column that is published in MetroPlus Weekend on alternate Fridays. The views expressed in the articles are those of the author.)

The next article in this series will appear on October 30.

Feedback and questions may be e-mailed to climaction2015@gmail.com

(Mridula Ramesh is the Executive Director of Sundaram Textiles. She is also a student and teacher of global warming.)

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