Potential of GHG emission reduction from agriculture sector

Land use change activities, use of fertilisers, and open field burning of agricultural waste are the major sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the agriculture sector. Clean development mechanism (CDM) of Kyoto Protocol provides various GHG mitigation options that reduce energy needs, recycle the generated waste and enable the use of alternate energy sources. CDM promotes projects that use renewable energy sources with clean technology leading to less dependency on conventional energy sources, ultimately reducing GHG emissions. A total of 167 CDM projects of the agriculture sector were studied across 19 countries regarding their emission reduction and methodologies used. Expected carbon emission reduction from the above 167 projects was about 10,083,912 metric ton of CO2 equivalent (MtCO(2)e), out of which actual emission reduction achieved till October 2012 was 4,989,448 MtCO(2)e per annum. This paper presents for the first time an overview of the contribution of CDM towards GHG mitigation in the agriculture sector.