Abstract: Climate change has been studied for decades, but today, the Earth feels its impact, such as extreme temperatures, severe thunderstorms, hurricanes, droughts, and flooding. The world has witnessed catastrophic events recently as global temperatures have reached alarming levels. In this context, it is understood that it is necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions considerably. In order to avoid the effects of climate change, the world is changing the energy matrix from fossil fuel to renewable energy sources, such as wind and photovoltaic. These energy sources are in the spotlight because they claim to be clean and environmentally friendly, with few emissions of greenhouse gases. However, the supply chain of these energies is not 100% clean. Some studies state that greenhouse gas emissions are associated with specific stages of their life cycles, such as in the processes of raw material removal, manufacturing, construction, maintenance, and decommissioning, as in Schreiber (2019) and Schultz (2022). Therefore, it is essential to understand the effects of renewable energy on climate change and biodiversity, whether negative or positive. In this sense, the research seeks to evaluate the inventory of greenhouse gas emissions from a photovoltaic solar plant in operation in Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, over the last three years, identifying the activities that generate the highest emissions and proposing the adoption of strategies to reduce them.

Keywords: Renewable energy, climate change, inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, photovoltaic solar plant.