Abstract

Indian livestock farming is one of the significant anthropogenic sources of methane (CH4) in the world. Here, CH4 emission from Indian livestock and climate change impact in terms of two climate metrics, global surface temperature change potential (GTP) and absolute GTP (AGTP), to assess the surface temperature changes for 20 and 100 year time frame have been studied. CH4 emission from Indian livestock was 15.3 Tg in 2012. GTP20 and GTP100 for livestock-related CH4 emission in India in 2012 were 1030 and 62 Tg CO2e, respectively. The study also illustrates that CH4 emissions can cause a surface temperature increase of up to 0.7–0.036 mK over the 20 and 100 year time periods, respectively. Thus, the negative climate change impact is global in nature, not only restricted to India. GTP and AGTP can be used in climate change impact study and as a more policy relevant tool.

Keywords: CH4 emission, climate change, global temperature change potential (GTP), absolute GTP (AGTP)
