NITI Aayog, ITF to Launch ‘Decarbonising Transport in India’ Project to Trim Carbon Emissions

Policy think tank NITI Aayog and International Transport Forum (ITF) will jointly launch “Decarbonising Transport in India” project on June 24, 2020, in order to develop a path for a low-carbon transport system for the country.

Since 2008, India has been a member of ITF, an intergovernmental organisation for transport policy.

Moreover, the public online launch event will be opened by ITF Secretary-General Young Tae Kim and NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant in the presence of senior officials of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MOHUA), Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways (MORTH), along with ITF officials.

Further, the online event will help in informing transport and climate stakeholders in the country about planned project activities, and will also offer an opportunity to provide inputs regarding India’s transport challenges and how they relate to CO2 reduction ambitions.

Besides, this discussion will help in focusing the project further on the country’s specific needs and circumstances.

Significantly, this project will design tailor-made transport emissions assessment framework for the country and will provide the government with a detailed understanding of current and future transport activity and related carbon emissions as a basis for their decision-making.

This event was launched on June 24, 2020, between 17:00–19:00 IST through youtube live streaming at https://youtu.be/l2G5x5RdBUM.

However, this project for India is carried out in the wider context of the ITF’s ‘Decarbonising Transport’ initiative, as it is part of the ‘Decarbonising Transport in Emerging Economies’ (DTEE) family of projects, which supports transport decarbonisation across different world regions.

Meanwhile, the current participants under the program are India, Argentina, Azerbaijan, and Morocco. Also, the DTEE is a collaboration between ITF and the Wuppertal Institute, supported by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.

Earlier, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said that the falling cost of electric vehicle (EV) batteries could pull down the cost of EVs and bring it at par with conventional vehicles in the next 2- 3 years. The higher cost of buying an EV and range anxiety has been the biggest deterrent in the mass adoption of EVs so far.