Gujarat Launches World’s First Trading Program for Particulate Air Pollution
- Gujarat has launched the world’s first emissions trading system for particulate pollution. It has been launched on World Environment Day i.e June 05, 2019.
- The programme 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.
How it works:
- Under the cap and trade system, the regulator first defines the total mass of pollution that can be put into the air over a defined period by all factories put together.
- Then, a set of permits is created, each of which allows a certain amount of pollution, and the total is equal to the cap.
- These permits are the quantity that is bought and sold. Each factory is allocated a share of these permits (this could be equal or based on size or some other rule).
- After this, plants can trade permits with each other, just like any other commodity on the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange Limited (NCDEX).
Current Level: For now, the government has set a cap on concentration of emissions for each industrial unit at 150 microgramme per cubic metre (ug/m3), which is the 24-hour average for emission standard set by the Central government for industrial units.