Combating Climate Change: Delhi Metro Earns Over Rs 19 Crore From Sale Of Carbon Credits

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has earned Rs 19.5 crores from the sale of 3.55 million carbon credits that it had collected over six years from 2012 to 2018.

“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,” the official statement said.

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.

Clean Development Mechanism

The CDM is a project-based Greenhouse Gas (GHG) offset mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol allowing the public and private sector in high-income nations the opportunity to purchase carbon credits from greenhouse gas emissions-reducing projects in low or middle-income countries as part of their efforts to meet international emissions targets under the Kyoto protocol.

CDM projects generate emissions credits called Certified Emission Reductions (CERs), which are then bought and traded. One CER is equal to one ton of CO2(eq) emission reduced.

The CDM helps to deliver sustainable development benefits to the host country. The CDM projects are managed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an entity established to combat dangerous human interference with the climate system.

Delhi Metro has registered four projects, viz Regenerative Braking project, Modal Shift project, MRTS PoA project and Solar project with UNFCCC, all of which are the first of their kind in the world.

In 2014, Delhi Metro also became the first-ever Metro and Railway system in the world to be registered with the prestigious ‘Gold Standard Foundation’, Switzerland, which is also a globally accepted certification standard for carbon mitigation projects. So far, DMRC has registered four projects with the Gold Standard Foundation.

The first CDM project of Delhi Metro was based on regenerative braking technology. Carbon credits generated from this project till 2012 were sold for Rs 9.55 crore.

For 2012-18, the combined GHG emission reduction achieved from all CDM and Gold Standard projects was 3.55 million carbon credits.

The sale of carbon credits accrued from CDM and Gold Standard projects in 2012-18 has generated a revenue of Rs 19.5 crore to DMRC.

Thus, total revenue generation from CDM and Gold Standard projects since inception has been Rs 29.05 crore.

Since 2015, Delhi Metro has also provided 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 etc., 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.