Navi Mumbai: NMMC to appoint consultant for Net Zero Roadmap for carbon neutrality

Navi Mumbai: The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) has floated a tender to appoint a consultant to prepare the Net Zero Roadmap of the city. The civic body, which has already set up a state-of-the-art sewage treatment plant and runs electric buses, is planning to further cut down the emission of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs).

India has announced its intention to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2070 by implementing various strategic initiatives, including achieving 500GW of non-fossil electricity capacity by 2030, to generate half of all energy requirements from renewables by 2030, among others.

The appointed consultant will work on government body initiatives, the industrial sector, and common people contributions including NGOs to achieve carbon neutrality by 2070.

Since Maharashtra has also been considering deregistering petrol and diesel vehicles and initiating a complete ban by 2030, the stress will be on promoting electric vehicles and setting up a greater number of charging stations. In addition, the appointed consultant will work on ways of energy reduction, transport, and waste sectors, as these contribute majorly to GHG emissions.

Apart from identifying major contributors to GHG, it will have to suggest ways for reduction to achieve carbon neutrality.

“The baseline of GHG emissions is calculated from the key emissions sources within the municipality area like residential, commercial, industrial, transport and waste,” said an official attached to the project. He added that the consultant will plan to identify these factors and involve government agencies, key energy suppliers, common citizens and NGOs.

“There will be a four steps plan that will be prepared by the appointed consultant that will be implemented over a period of time,” said the official.

In the final step, the civic body will declare its Net Zero Roadmap with clearly identified emission sources, emission reduction opportunities, a set of projects to be implemented for the emission reduction and an annual offsetting target to achieve the Net Zero.

Once the Net Zero Roadmap is developed and announced, there shall be a periodic review and monitoring of the progress on the ground to be able to course correct the Net Zero pathways.

As per the plan, India’s Net Zero roadmap is expected to create over 50 million of jobs, drive more than 1 trillion in economic impact by 2030, and 15 trillion dollar by 2070.