Trends in global carbon emissions
If we accept that human intervention is the cause of climate
change, then we must recognize that human behaviour has to change. The increase
in CO2 and methane emissions is the direct result of human enterprises, in the
form of generators, furnaces, engine combustion.
The EC Joint Research Centre have recently presented a
report in collaboration with the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
looking at the trends in Global CO2 Emissions.[November 2013]
The report makes it clear how difficult it is to identify
such emissions and how to present findings that tell governments and
corporations what is going on in terms of the pollution of the atmosphere, and
creation of climate change and global warming. The researches indicate that
while CO2 emissions are at their highest level, there is evidence that the
levels are lower in the ‘developed world’; [that more is less.]
The trends are based on measurements taken in 2012. The
actual global emissions were 34.5 billion tonnes, which was an increase of 1.4%
over 2011, but was significantly less than the annual increase of 2.9% since
2000. [more is less].
The report noted that there was a global shift to more
renewable energy, and increased energy saving along with less intensive
fossil-fuel activities: oil gas, coal.
The report did not focus only on global trends, it also told
us about regional developments. CO2 emissions increased in China [6.3%], India
[7%], and Japan [6%], and
decreased in the USA [4%],
the EU [1.6%], Russia [1%].
The increases in carbon emissions in China for 2012
did represent a decrease compared to the 10% annual growth since 2000. This
decrease was the result of the reductions in the generation of electricity from
coal, and increases in the use of hydro-power.
The decrease in carbon emissions in the USA is the result of the use of more gas [shale gas]. The decrease
is significant, given that the USA has the highest emissions levels in the
world!
The decrease of emissions in the 27 countries of the EU are
the direct result of the economic
recession and the reduction in the consumption of oil and gas.
The report concluded that while there was a global shift
from the use of coal to gas, to
bio-mass, and the development of carbon capture systems, there was a decrease
of nuclear power in the face of the Fukushima
disaster.
It was noteworthy that
renewable energy from hydropower, solar panels, wind mills, and bio
fuels was increasing, at last !
Will there be continuous decreases in CO2 emissions over the
next decade?
An important step is for the increasing use of gas: shale
gas , LNG.
High prices of coal and gas will effect the fuel mix of
public utilities.
A prolonged recession in the EU will reduce the use of
fossil fuels.
A change to a service based economy in China will reduce
the production of electricity by coal.
Whatever is happening to the levels of carbon emissions, the
particles of carbon dioxide continue to
rise. In 1990 there were 355particles of CO2 per million particles . In May
2013 this had increased to 400 ppm.
. Ted Trainer, of the University of New South Wales, in his
analysis, published in The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY,
(October 2008) argued that once the concentration of carbon dioxide and other
gases has reached 450 parts per million, the greenhouse problem cannot be solved
without large scale reductions in the volumes of economic production and
consumption.
He asserts that the greenhouse problem cannot be solved
within a society committed to free market capitalism and affluent living
standards, maximum levels of economic output, and economic growth. Ted Trainer, has been arguing for half a
century that consumer societies are fundamentally unsustainable. He argues that
the alarming greenhouse/ energy/ equity problems now threatening us cannot be
solved within any capitalist/consumer society but require a vast and radical
transition to very different economic, political and value systems and
structures. A simpler way is the only way forward. We must drastically reduce
economic production and consumption. Is it possible to stop climate change and
environmental pollution if we stop the emissions of heat trapping gases, such
as carbon dioxide and methane? A report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, as presented in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, January 2009, proposes that it is too late and that it will not be
possible to stop climate change and environmental pollution. Many people who
worry about global warming hope that once emissions of heat-trapping gases
decline, the problems they cause will quickly begin to abate. Now researchers
are saying that such hope is ill founded, at least with regard to carbon
dioxide. Because of the way carbon dioxide persists in the atmosphere and in
the oceans, and the way the atmosphere and the oceans interact, patterns that
are established at peak levels will produce problems like inexorable sea level
rise and Dust-Bowl-like droughts for at least a thousand years. According to
this view, the damage has already been done!
