NEW DELHI: Do an hour of yoga instead of running on a treadmill, go out and play instead of watching TV or playing on a device, walk if you need to go short distance, eat together and do not waste food and handover your textbooks to juniors – these are a series of low carbon lifestyle initiatives listed by the Ministry of Environment and Forests which according to green ministry can help save tons of carbon emissions and bring down power bill by thousands of rupees.
The ministry said that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are mainly driven by population size, economic activity, lifestyle, energy use, land-use patterns, technology and climate policy (IPCC).
“The toolkit on Low Carbon Initiatives lays emphasis that each of us needs to play a strategic role to help the country achieve its targets. It seeks to demonstrate that simple individual actions when adopted can have a significant overall bearing,” said the document.
The toolkit contains a list of practical climate friendly initiatives that can be adopted by individuals, educational institutions, and workplaces with detailed calculations of annual CO2 emissions reductions and cost savings from implementing these simple actions.
Like if you go out and play instead of watching TV or playing on a device can help in reducing annual CO2 emissions by 22-89 kg and cut down annual electricity bills by Rs 159 – 643. Similarly, doing an hour of yoga instead of running on a treadmill will reduce annual carbon emissions by 446 kg and reduce annual electricity bills by Rs 3238.
Other methods prescribed include eating together as heating food at one go to reduce unnecessary use the microwave oven for just five minutes a day reduce annual CO2 emissions by 30 kg.
The document arms trainers and users with a wide range of climate friendly examples and everyday actions, which when aggregated across a larger population will have significant impacts and contributions towards CO2 reduction for countries and communities to meet their intended target commitments.
“It also provides a quantitative estimation of the reduction in CO2 emissions at a micro-level and cost savings accrued by implementing the above-mentioned actions,” it added.
For each action, the reduction in annual CO2 emissions is translated into benefits from additional trees to illustrate the impact of that particular action. This is computed on the basis that on an average a tree can sequester about 10 kg of CO2 each year.