Tamil Nadu, which has seen a 84% rise in emissions from 2005 to 2019, needs nearly 475 gigawatt of solar energy and 90 gigawatt of wind power to achieve net zero emissions by 2070, according to the greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory released at the inaugural of the Tamil Nadu Climate Summit 2.0 on Wednesday. The inventory was published by the Tamil Nadu Green Climate Company and the Council for Environment, Energy and Water (CEEW), an independent policy research institution.
The report titled ‘Tamil Nadu’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Pathways for Net-Zero Transition’, released by Minister for Youth Welfare and Sports Development Udhayanidhi Stalin, in the presence of Minister for Environment, Climate Change Siva V. Meyyanathan, acknowledges that net zero emissions require significant transformation across key sectors, such as energy, industry, agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU), and waste.
As per the inventory, the State emitted a whopping 184 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2019. Of this, the energy sector contributes 77% of the GHG emissions; the industrial process and product use sector contributes 6%; the share of AFOLU sector is 12%; and the waste sector is responsible for 5% of the emissions.
