India will
soon roll out a green port policy to encourage local ports to adopt emerging
global standards on carbon neutrality, helping attain the broader long-term
national goal of net zero emissions.
Officials
said the policy will define the parameters for green port categorisation
besides incentives for undertaking the transition toward less polluting fuels
and improving efficiency to lower overall emissions.
“The policy will define how the Green
Ports model will be woven into with the Public Private Partnership (PPP) models
already deployed in ports,” a senior government official said.
It will
also provide for reduction of emission and have built-in incentives for doing
so.
“It will
provide for integration with the Green Hydrogen mission with a focus on how to
use the clean fuel in the port and shipping industry,” the official said.
The Panchamrit (five nectar elements),
defined by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi at the United Nations Climate
Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26), will be guiding principles of the policy.
Under the
Panchamrit, the Prime Minister has set a national target of raising the
non-fossil energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030. India, as part of the plan, will
also reduce the total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes from
2021 to 2030 and become Net Zero carbon emitter by 2070.
“The Indian ports will also have to
calculate the annual GreenHouse Gas (GHG) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emission. Once the quantity of emissions has
been established as the baseline, the domestic ports will then begin their
efforts to offset it in a defined time period,” the official said.
Indian
ports are already proposing to reduce carbon emissions per ton of cargo handled
by 30% by 2030.
India will
be the first country under IMO Green Voyage 2050 project to conduct a pilot
project related to Green Shipping.