The Tamil Nadu government has come up with a greenhouse gas inventory compendium for Coimbatore, Tiruchi and Tirunelveli. The aim is to prepare a contextual and inclusive climate- resilient action plans for these cities.
The manufacturing and construction sectors accounted for the highest quantum of greenhouse gas emissions in Coimbatore (35%). In Tiruchi, the residential sector topped the list (35.6%), followed by waste (31.7%). Transport accounted for 15% in both cities. The residential buildings were the largest contributor in Tirunelveli, at 51%, followed by road transport, at 22%.
As the municipal administration is central to the efforts at tackling climate change, cities can take the lead by framing strategies and programmes, integrating the action into the ongoing urban development and forging partnerships for effective responses. This is also applicable to rapidly growing urban centres. To support the State government, the CapaCITIES project, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), is working towards mainstreaming and integrating climate action plans into urban planning processes. One of the key steps is development of a greenhouse gas emissions inventory. The inventories were prepared using ICLEI’s HEAT++ tool, with 2020-21 as the baseline. The emissions have been estimated on the city scale (a community inventory) and separately for municipal operations to enable the local bodies to identify specific emission sources in their facilities and to lead the demonstration of interventions at the sources itself. It was prepared by ICLEI South Asia and implemented in partnership with South Pole, which develops and implements comprehensive emission reduction projects, and econcept, a research and consultancy firm, and funded by SDC.
Energy consumption
The trend of community-level energy consumption from 2016-17 to 2020-21 in Coimbatore showed that that the annual average growth was observed only in the residential sector (3.5%) and the rest showed a decreased trend. According to oil companies, there was a reduction in the total outlets selling petrol and diesel in the city limits owing to the closure of the pumps. Furthermore, thanks to the town planning policies and guidelines, the majority of the manufacturing industries moved out of the city limits, reducing fuel consumption for the sector. The trend of greenhouse gas emissions during the period showed a linear increase in the residential sector with an average annual growth of 1.1%.
In Tirunelveli, the annual average growth in energy consumption was the highest in the residential buildings sector (4.5%). The trend of emissions witnessed a negative average annual growth in all sectors, except in the residential buildings sector (5.4%), because of the impact of the lockdown to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. In Tiruchi also, the residential buildings sector showed an increasing pattern for energy consumption, at 2.81%, during the period from 2016-17 to 2020-21. It also showed an increasing pattern for emissions, at 4.56%. This was followed by waste at 0.63%.
“The Tamil Nadu government has been at the forefront of creating environmental benchmarks across industries. The release of the compendium of greenhouse gas inventories in these three cities will inspire other cities in Tamil Nadu as well as other States,” said Supriya Sahu, Additional Chief Secretary, Environment, Climate Change and Forests Department.
