India to start market-based cabon trading system

NEW DELHI - India will soon start a market-based emission trading system to check industrial pollution, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said Tuesday.

To begin with, the system will be implemented in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu as these states contain critically polluted areas with many large industries.

“The project requires real-time emission monitoring, which is the starting point for a market-based system,” said Ramesh.

The introduction of this trading pilot scheme can serve as a model for future environmental regulation in India and also position industry to benefit from potential tie-ups to global emissions trading schemes, as for carbon dioxide.

Ramesh said the ministry needs to investigate the changes required for the existing legal system of pollution regulation to enable emissions trading.

The broad contours of an emission-trading system are likely to be defined once the online monitoring takes off.