Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani launched India’s first market-based emission trading system to reduce air pollution, on World Environment Day 2019, which is a greatest threat to human life.
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.
The pilot programme, the first of its kind in the world, has been initially launched in Gujarat.
Touted to be the world’s ‘first’ emissions trading system for particulate pollution, the program is being piloted in Surat as it is a densely populated industrial centre where textile and dye mills release a significant amount of air pollution.
The pilot program will be a model for the rest of India and the world as a means of reducing air pollution and facilitating robust economic growth.
The Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) has teamed up with researchers from EPIC and other institutions like the Harvard Kennedy School, Yale University and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab to evaluate the program’s benefits and costs.
“With this program, we are kicking off a new era of cleaner production, while lowering industry compliance costs and rewarding plants that cut pollution in low-cost ways,” said GPCB chairman Dr Rajiv Kumar Gupta.
“We believe using this market-based system will prove that rapid economic growth, ease of doing business, and breathing clean air can all be achieved at the same time”, he added.
