Kolkata, March 9 (IANS) India must implement good practices to rein in its escalating energy use in buildings -- projected to increase seven-fold by mid-21st century, the author of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (IPCC) said here on Monday.
According to Diana Urge-Vorsatz, leading expert on interdisciplinary research on buildings and energy use, each week the global urban population goes up by 1.3 million, necessitating more number of buildings.
This, in turn, leads to a shooting up of building energies - energy used by buildings for heating and cooling - responsible for green house gas (GHG) emissions.
"India's building energy will still double or treble even in best case scenario as in adopting best possible technology and architecture," Vorsatz said referring to a building energy model prediction developed by her.
Building energy models means computer-based tools that simulate the energy use of a building for a specific duration.
Buildings are responsible for approximately one-third of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions and two-thirds of halocarbon emissions which in turn are connected to climate change.
"It will definitely still increase in the middle of the century but if India doesn't take strong action in mandating good architecture, good building codes, prevent urban heat islands and so on, then it could go upto seven times," warned Vorsatz, a professor at the Central European University, in Hungary.
She is the director of the Center for Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Policy at CEU and a coordinating lead author of 'Buildings' chapter in the IPCC's fifth Assessment Report (AR5) on climate change mitigation, 2014.
Vorsatz was speaking at a dissemination workshop of the AR5 organised by Global Change Programme, Jadavpur University, Kolkata in collaboration with Climate Development Knowledge Network (CDKN).
To counter rising building energies, Vorsatz said the way ahead is to adopt and implement practices such as use of low-carbon building materials and incorporation of traditional methods which are inherently climate-friendly.
Energy inefficiency of buildings is also linked to setting up of more power plants and pollution, she said.
"So you would need many more power plants... where do you import so much energy from? You are going to have much more pollution from all that and who will pay for all that energy?
"So much more energy use means tremendous pressure for both population (in terms of paying for it) and for the government (where do you build those power plants, what fuel do you use for them)," she stressed, adding that India is on the right-track but needs more steps in tackling building energy rise.
The Principal Secretary of Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena has written a letter to the Chief Secret
The world's largest vaccine producer Serum Institute of India (SII) is about to sign a corona vac
Centre sends disaster response teams to Kashmir
New Delhi, March 30 (IANS) The central government has sent two teams of the National Disaster R
Bigg Boss 19: Abhishek and Awez clash on Bigg Boss! An angry Amaal Malik slams them.
There's a lot of commotion going on in Bigg Boss these days. The captaincy task is underway. No t
No Indian in ICC's 2015 cricket World Cup team
Melbourne, March 30 (IANS) No Indian features in the 2015 International Cricket Council's (ICC)
For the first time, women fighter pilots of the Indian Air Force will participate in an exercise
The rural economy of the country is making a comeback. According to a report by American financia
This year, many star kids made their debut on the big screen, but their films neither earned mone
Take care of disabled people as per law, governments told
New Delhi, March 26 (IANS) The Supreme Court Thursday issued notice to the central and State go
The case of the cancellation of security clearance of Turkiye's company Celebi Airport Services b
