Climate change impact of livestock CH4 emission in India: Global temperature change potential (GTP) and surface temperature response.

ABSTRACT

Two climate metrics, Global surface Temperature Change Potential (GTP) and the Absolute GTP (AGTP) are used for studying the global surface temperature impact of CH4 emission from livestock in India. The impact on global surface temperature is estimated for 20 and 100 year time frames due to CH4 emission. The results show that the CH4 emission from livestock, worked out to 15.3 Tg in 2012. In terms of climate metrics GTP of livestock-related CH4 emission in India in 2012 were 1030 Tg CO2e (GTP20) and 62 Tg CO2e (GTP100) at the 20 and 100 year time horizon, respectively. The study also illustrates that livestock-related CH4 emissions in India can cause a surface temperature increase of up to 0.7mK and 0.036mK over the 20 and 100 year time periods, respectively. The surface temperature response to a year of Indian livestock emission peaks at 0.9mK in the year 2021 (9 years after the time of emission). The AGTP gives important information in terms of temperature change due to annual CH4 emissions, which is useful when comparing policies that address multiple gases.