Introduction

Global warming due to the increased concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHG’s) in the atmosphere is causing climate patterns to change. Global warming repercussions include major changes in temperature, precipitation, or wind patterns, among other effects, that occur over several decades or longer. Climate change is one of the greatest threats facing the planet Earth and hence has dominated social, economic, environmental and political aspects of cities, states, and countries around the world. Carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are the major cause of global warming. Reduction in the carbon footprint is accepted worldwide to mitigate global warming. Carbon footprint refers to the total set of GHG emissions caused directly or indirectly by an individual, organization, event or product (UK Carbon Trust, 2008).  This is measured by through the quantification of GHG emissions.  Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the primary greenhouse gas emitted through human activities. The main sources of CO2 emissions are electricity, transportation and industry. One of the main human activity that emits CO2 is the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil) for energy. Energy constitutes is an important source of many serious environmental problems due to the increase in emissions of GHG’s with the exponential growth of energy sector to meet the demand of burgeoning population. In the wake of the residential energy consumption outpacing of industrial sectors in some developed countries post 1990’s, the carbon emissions from residential sectors are emerging as new source of carbon emissions (Weber and Adriaan,2000; Bin and Dowlatabadi,2005; Druckman and Jackson, 2009). Cooking, water and space heating, pumping of water, transportation are the major energy activities in the residential sector

Conservation of energy and hence reductions in emissions, requires the changes in energy consumption behavior and implementation of low-carbon economic development. This necessitates the optimization of energy consumption structure, improvement of end-use energy efficiency and reduction of carbon emission intensity. Residential carbon emissions are due to the energy consumption in different activities such as cooking, hot water, heating etc. The main objective of the paper is to analyze the energy consumption patterns in the neighborhood and community of households in different wards of Bangalore. This also includes the study of household behavior regarding energy use as energy consumption is the outcome of type of implements, etc. Study was undertaken to assess the consumption patterns in different wards of Bangalore city.