- India’s first trading programme to combat particulate air pollution, ’emission trading scheme (ETS)’ was launched in Surat, Gujarat on June 5, 2019.
- Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani launched the initiative on World Environment Day which has air pollution as its theme.
About the Programme
- It is a market-based system where the government sets a cap on emissions and allows industries to buy and sell permits to stay below the cap.
- It is an initiative by the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) and the emission trading scheme (ETS) is designed with the help of a team of researchers from different institutions.
Cap and trade system
- Under this system, the regulator first defines the total mass of pollution that can be put into the air over a defined period by all factories put together.
- Then, a set of permits is created, each of which allows a certain amount of pollution, and the total is equal to the cap.
- These permits are the quantity that is bought and sold. Each factory is allocated a share of these permits (this could be equal or based on size or some other rule).
- After this, plants can trade permits with each other, just like any other commodity on the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange Limited (NCDEX).
- Currently, the government has set a cap on concentration of emissions for each industrial unit at 150 microgramme per cubic metre (ug/m3), which is the 24-hour average for emission standard set by the Central government for industrial units.
- Globally, cap-and-trade systems have been used to reduce other forms of pollution, such as programmes that have successfully reduced sulphur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the United States. However, the Gujarat programme is the first in the world to regulate particulate air pollution.
