The Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests has announced that all vehicles in the country will be sold with energy-efficiency tags from the year 2011. Mr Jairam Ramesh, who heads the Ministry, said on the sidelines of a FICCI conference on climate change that vehicles would be rated on the basis of fuel consumption, and that different standards would be adopted for different vehicles. The labelling programme, which will be voluntary at first, will be administered by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE). Senior officials from the Ministry of Power said that energy-efficiency standards should be based on fuel consumption per kilometre rather than on carbon dioxide emissions, as the former is easier to understand. Currently, the transport sector is responsible for almost 15 per cent of total CO2 emissions in the country. Mr Ramesh said that the labelling initiative will help India at the upcoming ‘Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change’, and will demonstrate the country’s seriousness in dealing with global warming.
All vehicles to carry energy-efficiency tags from 2011
By cars