Greenpeace urges bulb ban in India to combat climate change

Global environmental group Greenpeace has urged the India to ban incandescent light bulbs in favour of more energy efficient light sources to combat climate change and the energy crisis in the country, adding the ban would cut the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by four percent.

Launching a campaign here on Monday, April 16, the NGO said it would also impress upon the Government the need for a national legislation to phase out yellow bulbs and promote the use of compact fluorescent lights (CFLs).

"Such a legislation will be the first step towards implementing wide scale energy efficiency measures which will tackle India's energy crisis and help take a definite step towards fighting climate change," K. Srinivas, Greenpeace's climate change campaigner, told a news conference.

"With India's growing population and ambitious economic plans, carbon emissions will rise to three times more than current levels by 2050," Srinivas said. "It is therefore essential that India looks at becoming more energy efficient. And one way of doing this is through replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lights or CFLs which use much less energy and will cut emissions by four percent."

Srinivas said CFLs – although eight times more expensive than the yellow incandescent bulbs that have been in use virtually unchanged for 125 years – use 80 percent less energy and would save households and industries money.

Approximately 20 percent of electricity generated in India is consumed by lighting, Srinivas said, adding that switching to CFLs would also help address the country's growing power needs.

"Changing a bulb is a small step for each of us, but if all of us decided to do so together, we can reduce India's carbon dioxide emissions and contribution to climate change by 4 per cent which is as much as the entire carbon dioxide emission of a country like Denmark," he said.

Reduction in the prices and several regional attempts to promote CFLs have increased the production of CFLs from 6.4 million in 2000–2001 to 44 million in 2005–2006. However, during the same time, the production of incandescent light bulbs has increased from 638 million to 757 million, adding to wastage of energy in India, Srinivas said.

To be able to phase out conventional light bulbs by 2010, supportive measures need to be put in place by 2008, he said.

"We waste lots of energy in the households by inefficient lighting. One of the swiftest and most significant measures we can take to arrest our carbon emissions immediately is to ban the incandescent bulb by legislative measures," he said.

The incandescent bulb uses up to 95 percent of the energy to generate heat and only remaining 5 percent to produce light. CFLs use only 20 percent of the energy used by an ordinary light bulb, he claimed.

"In India, 18,000 megawatt power annually is used for lighting purposes alone, out of which 12,000 MW can be saved by using CFLs. Incandescent bulbs, which have efficiency less than 25 lumen/watt should be phased out over the next three years," he said, adding they were looking at a scenario where there would be huge power saving over the next few years.

Experts have warned that the populous Asian nation's carbon emissions, like those of China, are set to rise steeply due to its rapid economic development and unchecked greenhouse gas emissions could see temperatures rising between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius in the 21st century.

The Indian subcontinent is expected to be one of the most seriously affected regions in the world by global warming, which will mean more frequent and more severe natural disasters such as floods and droughts, more disease and more famine, the experts have warned.

The cost of climate change in India could be as high as a 9–13 percent loss in GDP by 2100 according to World Bank economist Nicholas Stern, Srinivas said.

In February, Australia announced it would be the first country to ban the light bulbs, saying they would be phased out within three years. The European Union (EU) has also said it will move toward a total ban on such bubs by the end of the decade.

However, there are concerns about the mercury content in CFLs by environmentalists, who have claimed that disposing of them could present serious health risks due to the toxicity of the heavy metal.

Srinivas cautioned that as CFLs contain toxic mercury vapour that would be released into the environment when CFLs are discarded, government must bring laws to enforce recycling of CFLs and also push manufacturers to find safer alternatives and phase out the use of mercury.

Global demand for CFLs remains relatively low, accounting for only 10 percent of the world's market share in light sources.

Currently contributing to around three percent of total global emissions, India, boasting of the world's second largest population, is already amongst the world's top five polluters, along with the United States, China, Russia and Japan.

Although India is not bound by the restrictions of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, it has been cited by countries such as the United States as a reason why Kyoto is ineffective. India counters, however, that its per capita energy consumption is among the lowest in the world.

In 2005 India consumed 520 kilograms of oil equivalent energy per person. The global average is 1,731 kgoe and Europe's average is 4,282 kgoe. The U.S. figure is close to 8,000 kgoe.

Still, as India's economy continues to expand, its energy consumption will rise, too, as will its carbon emissions.