The carbon footprints projected in the draft CCAP gives a scary picture as the State may become one of the largest carbon contributing States in India.

Releasing the CCAP at the State level celebrations of World Environment Day, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said, “the plan would lead Orissa to move towards a carbon-conscious and climate resilient State. The draft plan envisages an outlay of Rs.17,000 crores in 11 key sectors over the next five years.”

The CCAP would facilitate mobilisation of additional resources to implement the plan while a Climate Change Agency was proposed to be put in place to oversee the progress and liaise with Union government, external funding agencies and different sectors for smooth implementation of the plan, Mr. Patnaik said.

The draft plan says the energy sector in Orissa (both state supply and captive power) is going to be a large contributor to the carbon dioxide emissions.

“Assuming about 60,000 MW of power generation by 2020 and 5 million tonnes of carbon per 1,000 MW, the local carbon emissions will be 300 million tonnes of carbon per year.

Over a 30-year period, this will be about 9 billion tonnes of carbon. This is a large contribution from a single Indian state,” the draft plan says.

A high level coordination committee headed by the Chief Secretary Tarun Kanti Mishra has recommended that the State should proceed on a carbon-conscious development path to strike a balance between limiting carbon emission and meeting energy need.

Emphasising on good baseline information on current level of emission, the CCAP has recommended for formulation of carbon inventories or GHG (Green House Gas) profiling.

“Under this initiative, particular industrial clusters will be selected, an appropriate institute will be identified and GHG profile reports will be prepared in line with the best international practices. Based on this profiling, a system of GHG auditing will also be introduced,” the draft plan says.

This GHG profile will assist in understanding industrial performance on carbon emission and become an important input for policy making and monitoring performance of the industrial clusters with respect to carbon efficiency.

Monitoring of carbon stock and biodiversity at regular intervals is necessary to gauge the success of the various programmes implemented, the CCAP says.

It informs developing a new and independent organisation – a forest monitoring agency - under the Forest department will be undertaken. “Roles, responsibilities, authorities and resources for this new and independent organisation will be formulated; and this organisation will be made operational,” it says.