India to undertake carbon mapping of airport assets

India would be undertaking a carbon mapping of all its airport assets as part of the larger efforts to make the aviation sector carbon-neutral, civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has said.
 
"I have very clearly mandated that we need to do a carbon mapping exercise to understand, first of all, what are our direct and indirect emissions," Scindia told industry representatives on Tuesday.
 
The minister explained that direct emissions would involve assessing the number of carbon emissions generated through the use of electricity consumed and machinery used at airports. The indirect effect could be gauged by examining co-located services such as ground handling, aircraft, and other activities resulting in emissions.
 
"We need to do a carbon mapping of every airport, and post that carbon mapping, look at adaptation and short-term goals, medium-term goals, and long-term goals," Scindia urged airport operators and other stakeholders while addressing a session on sustainability organised by the industry body the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
 
The minister said that moving to the paradigm of environment sustainability and carbon neutrality brought with it tremendous opportunities as well.

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"One of those opportunities we are seeing rolled out is in the taxi bots, which are the robotic equipment that today draw planes out of the aerobridges and transport them until the runway. And, therefore, you are saving a lot of fuel while being taxied out to the runway," said Scindia.
 
Scindia also informed that he had mandated that 96 airports managed by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) must switch to renewable energy to become carbon neutral by 2024. Going forward any new airport development was going to be based on environmental sustainability and carbon neutrality. That clause was already incorporated in the bid documents for all future airport developments.
 
India is one of the fastest-growing aviation markets globally. Although the CO2 footprint generated by the industry is currently negligible, it is bound to grow manifold as only 4 per cent of the country's population is estimated to be using air transport currently.
 
Indian carriers emitted around 84,322 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere between 2016 and 2020, minister of state for civil aviation Vijay Kumar Singh had informed Rajya Sabha on Monday. Commercial aviation is estimated to account for nearly 3 per cent of CO2 emissions globally.
 
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