India’s efforts to reduce air pollution from coal-fired power plants may cost up to 2.5 trillion rupees ($37 billion), a price tag the New Delhi-based Association of Power Producers, a lobby group comprised of nonstate power generation companies, is unwilling to swallow, Bloomberg reported. “There are financing challenges, implementation challenges, administrative challenges and regulatory challenges,” Ashok Khurana, APP’s director general, said in the Wednesday article.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi published a series of new cleanup standards shortly after the adoption of the Paris climate change agreement at the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December. The standards limit emissions of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and mercury from thermal power plants. The standards vary based on the age of the plant.