Mumbai has recorded a declining trend of carbon emissions between 2019 and 2024, shows the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s data that was presented in the annual environment budget released on June 5.
Carbon emission refers to the release of carbon into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. This process is often a result of human activities like burning fossil fuels, industrial processes and deforestation.
Emissions are measured as per carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e)–a unit of measurement used to compare the climate impact of different Green House Gases (GHG) by expressing them in terms of equivalent amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2).
The trend was recorded to make a GHG inventory for Mumbai which includes an analysis of sectors and sources that emit carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Civic officials said that such an inventory enables the city to build evidence-based mitigation actions and policies to monitor progress–aligned with global community standards. As part of the Mumbai Climate Action Plan (MCAP), the first GHG inventory was recorded in 2019.
According to the GHG inventory, nearly 74% of the emissions are contributed by stationary energy sources–which includes buildings and entities that depend on fossil fuel, electricity or thermal energy, while 19.1% is contributed by the transportation sector and the balance 6% is emitted from waste resources.
According to the data, Mumbai recorded a decline of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emission levels by an approximate 2 million tonnes between 2019 and 2023.
The civic body’s data shows that in 2019, a baseline study of emissions showed 26.75 million tonnes of which stood at 24.6 million tonnes by 2023–which is a decline by 2.15 million tonnes.
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“Between 2019 and 2021, Mumbai’s emissions steadily fell reaching their lowest point in 2021, largely due to pandemic induced economic slowdowns, before rising again post 2021,” said the BMC’s budget document.
Besides this, the data also shows that there has been a decline in emission from solid waste –which the civic body has attributed to the centralised waste processing facility that was started in Kanjurmarg and the BMC’s data also shows that the waste sector has shown an overall reduction of emission by 6.4% which equates 1.57 million tonnes of CO2e.
“Emissions from the waste sector have shown a slight decrease, especially due to reduced emissions from solid waste generated in the city, which may be attributed to improved centralised waste processing and monitoring,” the BMC’s document read.
“There are reductions observed in the commercial, institutional buildings and facilities sector (by 26.6%) and residential buildings sector (by 11.36%),” the document further said.
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Meanwhile, in its budget, the civic body has put forward a target of reducing Mumbai’s overall emission levels by 30% till 2030 and 44% by 2040. Furthermore, the BMC in its climate budget has set up long-term targets that are to be achieved by 2030. According to the document, the civic body has aimed to reduce air pollution by at least 30%, urban heat island effect by 40% and increase vegetation cover by 40%. Furthermore, in its climate budget, the BMC has also proposed decarbonising Mumbai by at least 50% by electrification of all the existing BEST buses and civic-owned vehicles.
