A State-Level Methodology for Estimating Present-Day Emissions of Short-Lived Climate Pollutants from Fired Brick Production in India

Indian brick sector is dominated by traditional kilns with inefficient combustion technology. However, it has substantial potential in mitigating SLCPs through shifts towards efficient technologies, thus highlighting the need to understand the present-day emission profile from manufacturing of fired-clay bricks. We developed a methodology to estimate the emissions of black carbon (BC), organic carbon (OC), SO2 and ozone precursors (CO, CH4, NOx, NMVOC) at state level. It is used to estimate national brick demand which is distributed among states to estimate state-level production assuming production to follow demand. Fractional contribution of four major kiln technologies in India (Bull’s trench kiln, clamp kiln, Zig Zag fired kiln and vertical shaft brick kiln) is estimated for each state to estimate the state-wise share of different kiln technologies in production. Emissions of PM2.5, BC, OC and SO2 are estimated to be 165.9 (142.0–189.7) Gg yr−1, 119.1 (97.6–140.5) Gg yr−1, 9.4 (7.3–11.4) Gg yr−1 and 393.6 (314.1–473.1) Gg yr−1. For ozone precursors, the estimates are 2.6 (2.2–3.0) Tg yr−1, 248.4 (137.4–359.4) Gg yr−1, 66.2 (49.2–83.1) Gg yr−1 and 64.0 (48.2–79.7) Gg yr−1 for CO, CH4, NOx and NMVOCs. The states with large share of BTKs contributed most to BC emissions while regions having clamp kilns emitted higher OC, CO and CH4.