These factsheets are aimed at providing key information about climate change in a concise and easy to understand manner.

The 40 - 45% emission intensity cut between 2005 to 2020 announced by China is converted into its implied emissions in 2020. With an assumed 8% GDP growth in these 15 years, the Chinese total emissions will grow by 90% (to 38 GT). Chinese per capita emissions will increase by 80% in 2020 to 10 T/capita/yr, against the global average of 5.5 T and Indian emission of 1.7 T in 2005.

The climate mitigation targets proposed by India, China, EU-27, and USA are converted into their estimated total emissions and per capita emission in 2020. US is the highest emitter with 16.2 T/yr/person followed by China with 10 T and EU-27 with 7.3 T, while India would emit 2.8 T. The USA and China will be emitting 5.6 and 13.7 GT, while world should not exceed 45 GT of emissions.

The ceiling fan, a common household appliance, has a long life and its sales are growing at 10% per year. By 2020, more than 70% of the stock of fans will have been added from between now and 2020.  Therefore, it is important that this new stock be efficient. Analysis shows that with a small additional cost of about Rs. 50, it is possible to produce super-efficient (SE) fans with much less power consumption compared to standard fans today. The pay-back period of this additional cost is less than one year while the energy savings would last for 15-20 years.

This paper identifies the end-uses and appliances that are major contributors to electricity use in Indian households and the savings possible by moving to more efficient appliances in the coming years. Using a diverse set of data sources – national sample surveys, trends and projections of appliance sales, and sample energy consumption studies; the study shows that if all future sales are of efficient models for the key appliances, India can achieve annual savings of about 57,000 million units by 2013 – equivalent to over 20,000 MW (or one ultra-mega power plant per year!).   Retrofitting of lights accounts for about half the savings while ceiling fans, TVs, refrigerators, and reduction in stand-by power account for another 40% of the potential savings in households.

Doing a national program (NP) or efficiency improvement can capture the savings potential in appliances in a short period. Such a program has two feature: (1) it expands the geographic scope from utility or state to the entire country; and (2) shifts focus from changing the purchase decisions of millions of consumers to changing the behavior of a few manufacturers through upstream incentives and other measures. An NP can reduce transaction and program costs, and improve coordination and effectiveness of standards and labeling. This program is being developed by Prayas in collaboration with Lawrence Berkley National Lab (LBNL) and is being considered for implementation by Forum of Regulators (FoR) and BEE.

TVs, set-top boxes, computers, AC adaptors, and such appliances lose power in stand-by mode. A preliminary survey in rural and urban area shows that this loss is as much as 2,700 MU per year and would increase to 5,500 MU by 2013. Simple actions by the government can prevent this non-productive loss.