Hydrofluorocarbon Emissions-Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation

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Results at the Sectoral Level
In a developing country like India, public transportation is an important service. Buses, along with Indian Railways
have provided that role of providing public transportation service. Buses meet 60% of current passenger
service demand in India, and even with more and more people shifting towards cars, buses will meet almost half of
total passenger service demand in India in 2050. Buses are very important from the perspective of meeting travel
demands of a large concentration of population, many of which are lower or lower-middle income class. Hence
from a developing country perspective, even though car ownership will grow many folds in the future, importance
of bus service for meeting travel demand of a large and populous country is unlikely to be diminished. The stock
of buses increases by two and a half times between 2010 and 2050.
Railways have played an important role in India, especially for meeting long distance transportation needs. Passenger
service delivered by railways is expected to more than double between 2010 and 2030. However, beyond
this time, it is expected to be stagnant or decline slowly as with higher incomes more and more people shift to air
travel. However in terms of the scale of India’s railways passenger transportation, we don’t expect any decline in
its magnitude and significance. Total energy consumption by Indian railways increases, but its share in total transportation
energy consumption decreases significantly from 6% in 2010 to only 1% in 2050. Number of railway
coaches will follow the trend of total passenger service. In 2005, total railway coaches in India were 40,000 which
is expected to increase to 1,25,000 coaches at its peak in 2025/30.
With a high increase in the ownership of cars, HFC emissions from cars increase significantly to 75 MtCO 2
-eq in
2050, up from 1.6 MtCO 2
-eq in 2010. Corresponding emissions from buses are 2.6 MtCO 2
-eq in 2050, and that
from AC railway coaches are .27 MtCO 2
-eqin 2050. This shows that in the mobile air-conditioning sector, cars
are going to take a lion’s share in the HFC emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions from oil consumption in cars are
however are much larger, and increase from 13.7 MtCO 2
-eq in 2010 to 263 MtCO 2
-eq in 2050. Thus the global
warming impact of HFC emissions in the total emissions from cars in 2050 will be 22%. For buses, this share is
merely 3% in 2050, and for railways it is will be negligible.
3.4 Freight Transport Emissions
Freight transportation is a critical part of economic activity. As the economy grows, demand for produced final
goods as well as raw material grows, which leads to higher energy consumption and emissions. Clearly, it is the
economic activity that determines demand for freight transportation services.
Figure 14: Trucks: Stocks, energy consumption and emissions
Source: CEEW analysis
Freight transportation in India is driven either by goods trains of the Indian Railways, or through trucks. There
are different types of trucks used for transportation of goods. Broadly speaking, these can be categorized in heavy
duty and light duty trucks. As far as HFC emissions are concerned, trucks are the most relevant category. A ma-