• Delhi Metro has earned Rs 19.5 crore from sale of 3.55 million carbon credits, which it had collected over a period of six years from 2012 to 2018. 

• The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has been a pioneer in India in quantifying climate change benefits from its operations. It has a number of dedicated projects to its credit oriented towards energy efficiency.

• In 2007, Delhi Metro became the first metro or railway project in the world to be registered by the United Nations under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) which enabled Delhi Metro to claim carbon credits for its Regenerative Braking Project.

What are carbon credits?

• The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol, which, in accordance with Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol, allows emission-reduction projects in developing countries to earn Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits, each equivalent to one tonne of CO2. 

• These CERs can be traded and sold, and used by industrialised countries to meet a part of their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol. 

• The mechanism stimulates sustainable development and emission reductions, while giving industrialised countries some flexibility in how they meet their emission reduction limitation targets.

• The concept of carbon credit trading seeks to encourage countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, as it rewards those countries which meet their targets and provides financial incentives to others to do so as quickly as possible. 

• Foreign companies who cannot fulfil the protocol norms can buy the surplus credit from companies in order countries through trading.

• India acceded to the Kyoto Protocol in August 2002 and one of the objectives of acceding was to fulfil prerequisites for implementation of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects, in accordance with national sustainable priorities.

• The CDM projects are managed by The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

• Since 2015, Delhi Metro has also been providing CDM consultancy services to other metro systems in India, enabling them to earn carbon credits from their project. 

• Already Gujarat Metro, Mumbai Metro and Chennai Metro have registered their projects under the Delhi Metro’s Program of Activities (PoA) project enabling them to earn carbon credits and contribute to India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) in compliance with the Paris Agreement.

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