Urban Carbon Burden - The case of Pune City, India
Studying carbon emission-absorption
balance of countries and areas within has become
important to prioritize mitigation strategies and
minimize global warming, as sought by the Kyoto
Protocol.
The present investigation projected
literature data about emission potential of
socioeconomic strata along with Pune census data &
sequestration potential from literature & our biomass
surveys. These estimates were mapped for each sq. km.
grid according to the consumption pattern of various
economic groups and tree cover density respectively.
It emerges that only 2 % of the
total 7.8 lakh tons of Carbon emitted into the
atmosphere each year can be trapped by trees, while the
remaining 98 % overload contributes to global warming.
Rich people generate 34 % of above emission with per
capita emission, which is eight times that of the poor.
Thus besides promoting tree
plantation as a mitigation measure, it is imperative to
curtail the consumption of rich citizens even within the
poor countries to minimize emissions by a quarter of the
present emission. Switching from private transport to
public and minimizing consumer goods that are vigorously
promoted by globalisation would be other effective ways
of achieving this.

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