Long-term carbon dioxide and hydrofluorocarbon emissions from commercial space cooling and refrigeration in India: a detailed analysis within an integrated assessment modelling framework

Mohit Sharma, Vaibhav Chaturvedi () and Pallav Purohit ()
Additional contact information
Mohit Sharma: Environment and Water (CEEW)
Vaibhav Chaturvedi: Environment and Water (CEEW)

Climatic Change, 2017, vol. 143, issue 3, No 16, 503-517

Abstract: Abstract Quantification of greenhouse gas emissions is a critical research gap for space cooling and refrigeration applications in Indian commercial buildings. This is especially relevant as these services are expected to grow rapidly in future driven by economic growth and urbanisation. This paper focuses on these two applications which are highly energy and emission intensive, and quantifies their carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) emissions through soft-linking a top-down model with a bottom-up approach. An integrated assessment modelling framework Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM)-IIM is used for modelling energy-related emissions under a business-as-usual scenario. In addition to CO2 emissions occurring from electricity use, cooling and refrigeration in commercial buildings emit another set of highly potent greenhouse gases, emanating from application of HFCs as coolant. HFCs substitute their ozone-depleting precursors in these applications. Countries across the world have agreed to phase down HFCs under the Montreal Protocol. Before we can analyse cost-effective options to bring down these emissions, it is important to quantify and assess the amount of emissions that could be avoided in the future. Our research sets up a baseline for carbon dioxide and HFC emissions from India for the commercial air-conditioning and refrigeration sectors and finds the potential HFC emission mitigation due to the Kigali Amendment. A detailed bottom-up modelling of these emissions is undertaken and it is found that, if unabated, the HFC emissions from commercial sector will surge from mere 1.8 million tonne (Mt) CO2e in 2015 to 211 Mt CO2e in 2050, whereas energy-related CO2 emissions from commercial air-conditioning and refrigeration will rise from 37 to 297 Mt CO2e in the same period. We also highlight the role of management practices and regulation for curbing HFC emissions which is especially relevant for the commercial building sector.

Keywords: Refrigeration and air conditioning; Commercial buildings; GHG emissions; Montreal Protocol (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-017-2002-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:climat:v:143:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s10584-017-2002-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10584

DOI: 10.1007/s10584-017-2002-4

Access Statistics for this article

Climatic Change is currently edited by M. Oppenheimer and G. Yohe

More articles in Climatic Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().