Planning and developing the resources by carbon footprint assessment

Climate change related policies, action plans and GHG Protocol’s Lifecycle Accounting and Reporting Standard were used to develop a model for assessment of carbon foot print of a large opencast coal mine in India. 28 numbers of mining activities grouped into Scope-1, Scope-2 & Scope-3 as per GHG protocol corporate standard. These activities either direct or indirect emitters are main contributors of GHG emissions during coal mining process. 20 nos. of empirical mathematical relations were used with assumptions. The paper also describes the Green House Gas (GHG) reduction measures in an opencast coal mine.27 pathways of GHG reduction along with 14 general pathways have been identified from different sources. The paper will certainly help the mine managers to reduce their carbon foot print & help the India’s INDC commitment for reducing 2% of carbon emission as per Paris 2015 submits. Rural settlement sets on transforming to urban settlement on development of mines in a locality. Thus knowledge of carbon footprint beforehand will also help planners in planning and developing urban settlement in and around an open cast mine As per study although overall GHG emission has increased the GHG emission per unit of coal production has shown a decreasing trend. The majority of GHG emissions apart from fugitive emission are from diesel consumption. The study can be replicated in other similar units of India also. The results have been illustrated through graphs, tables and figures.