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The research project “Clean Energy Transition” focuses on the energy sector of City Climate Action Plans by addressing the triple challenge of Urbanization, climate change and fractured urban governance. Energy regardless of where it originates, is a critical component for urban growth. It is required for transport, commercial purposes and industrial activities, buildings and infrastructure necessities, water distribution and also for producing food. Fossil fuels made up 81.3% of the world’s energy supply in 2012, nuclear power accounted for 9.7% and the remaining 9% came from renewable energy sources such as hydropower, wind, biomass and solar (Urban energy, n.d.). Limited energy resources are under the pressure from population increase, rapid urbanization and expanding economic development, with annual demand growth in developing countries hovering around 7%. Thus it becomes very important to address and prepare a road map for renewables in the CAP as it is one of the essential sectors in the Action Plans and resilience for any city. Below are the sub sectors that are responsible for the emissions in any city under the energy sector. This research project aims to create a framework for the energy sector in Climate Action Plans for which the methodology included sector specific literature studies and global case studies to understand the actions proposed in the energy sector of CAPs. All of these led to creation of the framework which was applied to the Draft Chennai CAP which has been taken as a case study for this research, gaps and missing links were identified and recommendations were given accordingly.The power sector constitutes one of the world’s greatest emitters of greenhouse gases globally. Thus cutting emissions from energy sector is very crucial to prevent global warming. Electricity and heat which are used by buildings are among the main generators of GHG emissions, with an average of more than half of all cities emissions coming from them (C40). The emissions from the energy sector in India is comparatively lower than that found globally but even then is the dominant sector of all when it comes to GHG emissions. While electricity (coal fired plants) is the major producer of carbon footprints within the energy sector, industries and buildings are close behind. It is also important to note that the primary energy demand is still majorly met by coal and oil and has only been increasing since 2000. Only 3% of the energy demand is met by modern renewables. To understand the energy sector of City Climate Action Plans in detail case study method has been used as a qualitative research approach. For which three different case studies have been selected namely Durban, Jakarta and Mumbai. The key takeaways from them were as follows: 1. Climate Actions needs to be incorporated into regulations and spatial planning (done by Jakarta by integrating the CAP to the Regional Spatial Masterplan 2030 and The Provincial Mid Term Development Plan 2022. 2. A city should have multiple energy suppliers and a mix of public and private as only then the authority will be able to look into the monitoring and implementation aspects to achieve the targets. Mumbai can achieve its net zero targets by 2050 as it has a mix of public and private suppliers. 3. Financing the targets proposed in the energy sector is also very important. Just like Mumbai has identified for each of its targets proposed in CAP the funding mechanism for the same. 4. Developing information technology that helps people know the potential of solar rooftops at their terraces with details on prospective costs and benefits. Durban has already developed this technology. 5. Public Participation is very important for creating awareness among the citizens. Jakarta has a specific working group responsible for the same and Durban too is engaging youth through various awareness campaigns and contests. 6. Monitoring and Evaluation of sector-specific actions is crucial. Hence Mumbai, Durban and Jakarta have proposed to Monitor and Evaluation cell or systems for the same. The proposed actions in the Chennai CAP has considered both the Supply and the demand side. The supply side focuses on shift to renewables and decentralized energy storage systems while the demand side focuses on energy-efficient buildings and their design. In the supply side the sub actions in 100% renewable power for grid focuses upon revision of tariffs, exploring large scale power storage systems, replacing thermal power based energy generation to clean sources while that in the decentralized energy storage and generation the sub actions focus on city level energy storage systems, guidelines for integrating solar rooftops, expanding the DCR provision for all the buildings etc. Where as in the demand side the sub actions in 100% use of energy efficient appliances focuses upon Information Education and Communication programme and credit programmes. The sub actions in the Energy efficient building designs address the need for technical support, authorised service providers, public data base etc. The analysis of these actions and sub actions of the energy sector showed that while the proposed energy targets and actions are very ambitious and aim to reach net zero by 2050, it fails to highlight the funding mechanisms to implement the actions, does not identify the responsible stakeholders for the implementation of the action and more over the governance structure of energy sector does not give any authority to the city corporation rather the power lies within the state. Thus, through this research, an attempt has been made to identify such missing links and issues and provide recommendations to improve the implementation strategies, functionality of the CAP, and institutional structure which can not only be applied to Chennai but also to any of the cities in India as almost everywhere in India the energy sector and the building codes and regulations is governed by the state. Thus, given the three challenges, the research emphasizes the importance of using an integrated and context-specific approach to developing CAPs. Creating a comprehensive sector-specific framework within a larger global structure can result in tangible benefits for city resilience and global climate change efforts.
