India’s Initiatives on Environmental Safeguarding- Sustainability

The report on sustainability initiatives across key sectors in India is written to highlight the current status of existing initiatives and also the future scope of initiatives that would be taken across key sectors in India. The report will showcase macro level information. The general question in travelling in mind would be why sustainability is growing so much in prominence? Quite likely the substitute answer would be to combat the climate change and safeguard the environment. The reason for choosing to write the report on Sustainability would be to increase the prominence of the initiatives that would reach out to various sectors, and hence can benefit the overall Indian sectors as a whole. Since climate change is a global issue, India’s initiatives against climate change in the form of various mitigation and adaptation would count against this climate change as a whole.


INTRODUCTION
Sustainability in India is a challenge owing to immense change in the climatic conditions. Climate Change is a serious global environmental concern. It is primarily caused by the building up of Green House Gases (GHG) in the atmosphere. The global increases in carbon dioxide concentration are due primarily to fossil fuel use and land use change, while those of methane and nitrous oxide are primarily due to agriculture. Global Warming is a specific example of the broader term, "Climate Change" and refers to the observed increase in the average temperature of the air near earth's surface and oceans in recent decades. Its effect particularly on developing countries is adverse as their capacity and resources to deal with the challenge is limited. Ever since industrialization occurred, there has been an increase in the burning of fossil fuels to meet the high energy demands. The use of such fuels causes emission of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and other greenhouse gases which lead to global warming. One way to alleviate this is to reduce the use of such fuels. An alternative method is to capture and store the emitted CO 2 to stop it from polluting the atmosphere. Over the last 100 years, global mean surface temperature has increased by 0.74 ± 0.18°C. Amongst many engineering Geoengineering refers to modification of a planet's natural environment through various technologies to counter-act anthropogenic climatic change. CO 2 emitted from thermal power plants and CO 2 intensive industries is captured and stored in various reservoirs to lessen their polluting impact on the atmosphere. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) can provide an excellent transition from conventional to non-conventional methods of generating power, such as solar power, wind power, geothermal energy.
The key environmental challenges in India have been sharper in the past two decades. Climate change is impacting the natural ecosystems and is expected to have substantial adverse effects in India

BRIEF THEORY BEHIND SUSTAINABILITY
In Sustainability mitigation adverts to attempts to reduce or prevent emission of greenhouse gases. Mitigation necessarily mean using new technologies and renewable energies, making existing equipment more energy efficient, or changing management practices or consumer behavior. Protecting natural carbon sinks like forests and oceans, or creating new sinks.
Adaptation is making appropriate adjustments in existing nature and therefore requires a blended effort of technology and capital. Effective adaptation is driven by both policy and investment issues into the planning and decision-making processes. No one stop solution will adequately address effective adaptation. There are inbuilt uncertainties in the timing and magnitude of climate change.
Since global warming is the major challenge for our global society today. There is very little doubt that global warming will change our climate in the next century. Now there are international political solutions. Funding for developing cheap and clean energy production must be increased, as all economic development is based on increasing energy usage.

Self-Driven
Voluntary initiatives adds to an organizations both cost and energy saving measures. They are largely varying from renewable energy (RE) utilization to adopting measures in energy efficiency techniques. With the increase in efforts against climate change, shifting into renewable energy is one of the most desirable and convenient option. Indian government had started its specific ministry "Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), in 1992. Though this new name "MNRE" was adopted only in 2006. However renewable energy is not the only option for combating climate change. Energy efficiency also plays a very vital role in saving energy and controlling emissions. Almost all industries are now undertaking measures to save energy and to control emission. Be it government or private concern, energy saving measures are highly involved. A separate government organization was formed in 2002, "Bureau of Energy Efficiency" (BEE) with a primary objective of reducing energy intensity across industries in India.

Governmental Initiatives
Various governmental organization, Public sector units (PSU), private firms are clubbed together under common goal of climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives. From governmental driven schemes to international mechanism, most organizations are following norms and many of them are also taking up self-propelled initiatives. India is the 5th largest power generator and also the 5th largest wind energy producer in the world. India is expected to install 20,000 MW of solar power by 2022.Economic growth, increasing prosperity, a growing rate of urbanization and rising per capita energy consumption has widened access to energy in India. The Government of India (GoI) has set a capacity addition target of 30 GW, which will take the total renewable capacity to almost 55GW by the end of 2017. This would include a 15 GW from wind power, 10 GW from solar power, 2.9 GW from biomass power and 2.1 GW from small hydro power. The government has created a liberal environment for foreign investment in renewable energy projects. The establishment of a dedicated financial institution -the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency, makes for renewed impetus on the promotion, development and extension of financial assistance for renewable energy and energy efficiency/conservation projects.
International Letters of Natural Sciences Vol. 47

SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVES
Renewable energy would elaborate about the various solar, wind, bio fuel, and small hydro initiatives taken up by companies under various sectors. Energy efficiency would detail about the various energy conservation techniques from waste heat recovery devices, to power factor improvement, energy audits that are being taken up by organizations. Table: 1 Thematic representation of Initiatives across sectors in India Adaptation would detail about the various adaptation measures like rain water harvesting, water management, strengthening of existing infrastructure. Resource conservation would detail about few of the initiatives to save the existing and ways how the organizations are reusing the existing sources. The general emphasis is largely on solar and wind, and very less work is done on the alternate fuels, and small hydro sources. Though small hydro has its sets of limitation of place, construction and economy, alternate fuels is also a genre which holds a lot of potential. Organizations should pick up quickly on the biomass/Biogas/Bio fuel sources to replace the existing fossil fuels.

Heavy Engineering
Organization falling under this category are highly energy intensive and utilizes a huge amount energy for the purpose of manufacturing. The total dependence is on conventional sources, companies under this sector are now adopting alternatives to save energy. Bharat Forge is now utilizing bio fuels for all its working units.BHEL has also implemented solar plants for its own consumption. Thermax has focused on biomass and waste to energy applications, Punj Lloyd is also working immensely in the solar domain, with solar PV, and Solar powered water treatment plants.
Since there is a huge consumption of energy in this sector, various energy saving techniques are being taken up by these companies.

Railways
Indian railways has laid a good foundation of renewables, and has implemented various projects. Wind and solar projects are already being installed. Railways is widely supported by MNRE for renewable projects. Indian railways also has started research on alternate fuels like biodiesel, are being worked upon.
Railways is a energy intensive sector, as huge amount of electricity is consumed. There are ways in which energy saving is carried out. Adoption of 3-phase propulsion systems, adoption of static converter , using auxiliary power unit, Installation of power factor correction devices, Regenerative braking system, energy efficient rolling stock technology are few of the energy saving technologies.
Indian railways have also focused on various adaptation initiatives .Rainwater harvesting, water storage and conservation, strengthening of bridges, strengthening of overhead lines, strengthening of infrastructure like stations, workshops, car sheds.
Introduction of biotoilets, water storage and recycling units, food wastes and other wastes are recycled or used in waste to energy plants.

CONCLUSION
Since Climate Change has been such a threatening issue over the last few years, it's high time to take adequate steps in encountering it. Emphasis lies in keeping the global temperature below the 2degree Celsius which was previously set through U.N. conventions, greenhouse gas emissions will have to drop by 40-70% by 2050.
In the first decade of the 21st century, emissions rose by 2.2% per year, for which countries with population and economic growth like China and other parts of the developing world are highly responsible. The U.N. is working toward a far-reaching new global climate pact, to be completed in late 2015 and to take effect in 2020. But the major challenge has been getting rich and poor nations to agree on a plan at a common platform. Therefore it can be hoped upon that countries would agree to the challenges and would unite together to combat this global threat