29.6 Carbon Sequestration in India

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for consumption and transportation, various targets were set to achieve renewable

energy of up to 20% and renewable fuel including biofuel of up to 10% [42].

To eradicate first-generation biofuel impact, second- and third-generation biofuel

came into action. EC established biofuel binding sustainability criteria in 2009

within the renewable energy directive (RED). This says for new biofuel production

area with high biodiversity and carbon stock should not be exploited and in

comparison, with fossil fuel, the increment of biofuel usage should be done. The

aim is to reduce the emission of GHG by 35% which further increased up to 50%

and 60% by 2017 and 2018, respectively [43].

29.5

Effect of Increased CO2 Concentration,

Sequestration, and Circular Economy

Over the centuries, humans used all possible ways to use fossil fuel, which lead

to increase CO2 concentration tremendously without understanding the grave

consequence of such use. The upsurge CO2 level has become the prime cause of

terrible climatic changes. If proper measures are not taken over anthropogenic

activities, then there is an increase in quantities of CO2 from 28.8 Gt in 2007 to

40.3 Gt by 2030, and 50 Gt by the end of 2050 can be seen [32]. For the infrastruc-

tural and economic growth, global energy demand acts as a driving force to use

these biological methods for sequestration. Hence, another biological method like

biorefinery should be explored to reduce carbon footprint. Petroleum biorefineries’

basic concept has been already established. However, the approach is to develop

CO2 biorefinery to obtain a diverse bio-based product that offers a sustainable,

eco-friendly, and renewable environment [32]. This paper highlighted few biological

CO2 sequestrations methods using the biorefinery approach which target both how

to sequester CO2 and how to reduce it.

29.6

Carbon Sequestration in India

Between the period of 2015 and 2017, India covers a total land area of about

708 273 km². World Bank recently reported out 60.4% of the total country area is

covered by the agricultural sector. The number shows that a large part of Indian land

can be used for carbon sequestration and GHG mitigation if proper management

practices are followed [44]. However, measures need to take for controlling the

transmission of carbon as currently India contributes 7% of the total emission of

GHG globally and becomes the fourth biggest emitter worldwide. India being a

country of huge land has a great potential to use the land in agroforestry practices

for carbon sequestration and can sequest 66–228 MgC/ha of carbon. But various

environmental factors come into consideration such as in tropics, from the top

20 cm of the soil, only 70 mg/ha of carbon can be sequest by the agroforestry system

[45]. Depending on different agroforestry systems, carbon sequestration can occur