Kolkata, March 9
India must implement good
practices to rein in its escalating energy use in buildings -- projected
to increase seven-fold by mid-21st century, the author of an
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (IPCC) said here on
Monday.
According to Diana Acerge-Vorsatz, leading expert on
interdisciplinary research on buildings and energy use, each week the
global urban population goes up by 1.3 million, necessitating more
number of buildings.
This, in turn, leads to a shooting up of
building energies - energy used by buildings for heating and cooling -
responsible for green house gas (GHG) emissions.
"India's
building energy will still double or treble even in best case scenario
as in adopting best possible technology and architecture," Vorsatz said
referring to a building energy model prediction developed by her.
Building energy models means computer-based tools that simulate the energy use of a building for a specific duration.
Buildings
are responsible for approximately one-third of energy-related carbon
dioxide emissions and two-thirds of halocarbon emissions which in turn
are connected to climate change.
"It will definitely still
increase in the middle of the century but if India doesn't take strong
action in mandating good architecture, good building codes, prevent
urban heat islands and so on, then it could go upto seven times," warned
Vorsatz, a professor at the Central European University, in Hungary.
She
is the director of the Center for Climate Change and Sustainable Energy
Policy at CEU and a coordinating lead author of 'Buildings' chapter in
the IPCC's fifth Assessment Report (AR5) on climate change mitigation,
2014.
Vorsatz was speaking at a dissemination workshop of the AR5
organised by Global Change Programme, Jadavpur University, Kolkata in
collaboration with Climate Development Knowledge Network (CDKN).
To
counter rising building energies, Vorsatz said the way ahead is to
adopt and implement practices such as use of low-carbon building
materials and incorporation of traditional methods which are inherently
climate-friendly.
Energy inefficiency of buildings is also linked to setting up of more power plants and pollution, she said.
"So
you would need many more power plants... where do you import so much
energy from? You are going to have much more pollution from all that and
who will pay for all that energy?
"So much more energy use means
tremendous pressure for both population (in terms of paying for it) and
for the government (where do you build those power plants, what fuel do
you use for them)," she stressed, adding that India is on the
right-track but needs more steps in tackling building energy rise.
