Decarbonisation pathways are inevitable for green growth of Jharkhand, felt experts during a conference, Facilitating Decarbonisation in Jharkhand, in Ranchi on Tuesday.

The day-long conference was organised by a Jharkhand government task force, Sustainable Just Transition, and its technical partner Centre for Environment and Energy Development (CEED). The conference discussed the challenges of reducing carbon emissions and outlined the decarbonisation pathways for Jharkhand.

Elaborating on the intent and context of the conference, chairman of the government task force and retired forest official A.K. Rastogi said: “Jharkhand is known for its robust industrial base and presence of large industries and MSMEs. Developing a comprehensive cross-sectoral decarbonisation framework for the state is one of the key thematic areas for the task force. We had conducted several consultation sessions with diverse stakeholders in previous months, and one overarching theme that came across was accelerating the decarbonisation journey in the state.”

“Hence, this conference marks a crucial step towards sharing knowledge and best practices, building partnerships and accelerating convergence of actions for a resilient and low-carbon future,” added Rastogi.

Jharkhand has several energy-intensive industrial activities that lead to a considerable amount of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions. The study suggests that the state contributes about four per cent of total GHG emissions in the country while per capita emission is more than the national average. A critical challenge is the dominance of fossil fuels in the state’s energy mix. The presence of hard-to-abate industries (e.g. steel, sponge iron, cement, and ammonia production) places the need for augmenting the decarbonisation process to meet net-zero goals.

The conference convened key stakeholders from government departments and agencies, industries, business associations and technology firms and beyond who pledged support and provided strategic input for creating sustainable pathways towards reducing cross-sector emissions.

Bhor Singh Yadav, director of industries department, emphasised that the department was supportive of creating an environment conducive to sustainable industries practices through incentives, capacitation and hand-holding support for steering toward a low-carbon industrial ecosystem.