Home » Posts tagged 'carbon emissions' (Page 6)

Tag Archives: carbon emissions

New research on forests and oceans suggest projections of future warming may be too conservative, with serious consequences

January 31, 2021

New research on forests and oceans suggest projections of future warming may be too conservative, with serious consequences

How much will the world warm with ongoing fossil-fuel carbon emissions? It’s a big question that preoccupies policymakers and activists, with important discussions about when the world will hit two degrees, are we really on a path to four degrees of warming with current Paris commitments, and so on.

And the answer is that the world is likely to warm more than current projections, if two recently published pieces of research on the terrestrial and ocean carbon sinks are any guide.

Warming projections and carbon sinks. Future warming projections come from complex climate models, which combine historic data, current observations, equations that encompass current understandings of the bio-geo-physical processes, and some assumptions about processes where direct observation or modelling is more difficult.

About 30% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that humans are pouring into the atmosphere mixes with the top layer of the ocean (making the water more acidic and posing a growing acidification threat to ocean life), about 30% is absorbed by the terrestrial biosphere (trees and plants), and about 40% stays in the air, heating the planet.

Assumptions about those processes in the future fundamentally affect projections of future warming. If these ocean and terrestrial carbon stores (or “carbon sinks”) become less efficient, then a greater proportion of human emissions will stay in the air, and warming will be faster than currently projected for a given level of emissions.

So the models make assumptions about these carbon stores:

For the terrestrial carbon sink, it has been observed that with more CO2, plants grow faster because there is more CO2 “food” for them to absorb. This is known as the “fertilisation effect”, and while there are highly divergent sink trajectories from Earth system models, the models “nevertheless agree on continued futures increases in sink strength due to the CO2 fertilisation effect.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Aramco’s Carbon Emissions Could Be “Nearly Double” What The Company Discloses

January 22, 2021

Aramco’s Carbon Emissions Could Be “Nearly Double” What The Company Discloses

It was no secret that leading up to Saudi Arabian Oil Co.’s IPO in 2019 that the company touted its low emissions compared to other producers.

Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser said while the company was doing its roadshows: “Not because our crude is cleaner than other crudes globally. It’s because of our standards. Even though our numbers are great, climate change is critical for the world.”

But now, it appears the company may have “failed to provide a complete picture”, according to a new Bloomberg report. The report says that Aramco fails to account for emissions generated from many of its refineries and petrochemical plants.

Inclusive of the omissions, Bloomberg estimates that the company’s carbon footprint would “nearly double”, and that Aramco would add as much as 55 million metric tons of CO2 to its annual tally.

Now that investors “need to be able to put a price on the climate risks that they are running in their portfolios,” as one commodity researcher put it, the carbon footprint numbers can easily turn into a “red flag”.

When Bloomberg reached Aramco for questioning, the company replied: “We have a clear and deliberate path to increase the scope and details of [emissions] disclosure.” It said its current number “reflects emissions from those assets where Aramco has the accountability and ability to manage and control emissions.”

The company gets away with its current disclosures by pointing to the process of extracting the oil in Saudi Arabia. It will often cite studies that show that extraction of Saudi oil generates the second lowest amount of emissions in the world.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How BC’s Fossil Fuel Fights Link to a String of Wins in the US

January 18, 2021

How BC’s Fossil Fuel Fights Link to a String of Wins in the US

A thin green line with global impact. Latest in a series on creating a zero-carbon bioregion.

Familiar mood, different Vancouver. Protesters block an oil-carrying train in Vancouver, Washington in 2016 — part of a two-decade movement spanning Alaska to California. Photo: Alex Milan Tracy, AP.

On a brisk December morning in 2012, Montana ranchers in cowboy hats walked alongside members of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in traditional regalia through the streets of Seattle in search of a good breakfast. After eating, they headed to Seattle’s convention centre to square off against multinational companies aiming to move coal on trains through the Pacific Northwest to be loaded on ships bound for Asia.

Their partnership went the distance. Three years after that hearing, the proposed Washington coal terminal was dead. Those trains bearing Montana and Wyoming coal never rolled.

Opponents’ victory in that case was emblematic of how environmentalists, Indigenous Peoples, ranchers, politicians, doctors, fishermen and even windsurfers worked for a decade to fend off more than 20 proposals to ship fossil fuels across the Pacific Ocean, from near Prince Rupert, British Columbia clear south to San Luis Obispo, Calif.

While readers of The Tyee will be aware of ongoing resistance in B.C. against extracting and transporting fossil fuels, this is the story of how such efforts have for years crossed borders to connect with activism up and down the West Coast. The range of projects fought, from shipping coal and oil by train to pumping gas and oil through pipes, is a reminder of how sprawling and persistent the fossil fuel industry’s global export agenda is. And it demonstrates the power of grassroots organizing.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The curse of ‘white oil’: electric vehicles’ dirty secret

December 8, 2020

The curse of ‘white oil’: electric vehicles’ dirty secret

The race is on to find a steady source of lithium, a key component in rechargeable electric car batteries. But while the EU focuses on emissions, the lithium gold rush threatens environmental damage on an industrial scale.

Even before the new mine became the main topic of village conversation, João Cassote, a 44-year-old livestock farmer, was thinking about making a change. Living off the land in his mountainous part of northern Portugal was a grind. Of his close childhood friends, he was the only one who hadn’t gone overseas in search of work. So, in 2017, when he heard of a British company prospecting for lithium in the region of Trás-os-Montes, Cassote called his bank and asked for a €200,000 loan. He bought a John Deere tractor, an earthmover and a portable water-storage tank.

The exploration team of the UK-based mining company Savannah Resources had spent months poring over geological maps and surveys of the hills that ripple out from Cassote’s farm. Initial calculations indicated that they could contain more than 280,000 tonnes of lithium, a silver-white alkali metal – enough for 10 years’ production. Cassote got in touch with Savannah’s local office, and the mining firm duly contracted him to supply water to their test drilling site. The return on his investment was swift. After less than 12 months on the company’s books, Cassote had made what he would usually earn in five or six years on the farm.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

NET ZERO — Everyone, from countries to companies, is talking about it – But what does it really mean?

December 6, 2020

NET ZERO — Everyone, from countries to companies, is talking about it – But what does it really mean?

BEWARE — Turns out that not all Net Zeros are created equal – Some are “greenwashing” with big loopholes to slip through. —

ClimateAdam

“You see, everyone from countries to companies are announcing their net zero targets. But there’s a lot hiding behind this little number. And sometimes net zero can mean nothing at all. Let’s start be looking at this crucial little word: “net”. This simply means that overall emissions have to add to zero. So there still can be some emissions, they just need to be cancelled out by absorptions…say by planting trees to suck carbon out of the air. But not all “net zeroes” are created equal. Some are cast much wider than others. And some have much bigger loopholes to slip through. Take my own country – the UK. Last year, the UK made history by setting a net zero target for all greenhouse gases by [the year] 2050. But don’t celebrate just yet. The fine print shows that the UK is happy to make others do the hard work. The target allows the UK to get other, poorer countries to clean up our mess, absorbing the carbon dioxide that we’re emitting. … But our enthusiasm should have just as many loopholes as the announcements themselves. Because if we’re not working hard to end our emissions, then these announcements really do mean zero.” —ClimateAdam

Below is my repost of an embedded 6-minute video of ClimateAdam’s expose of the fine print and greenwashing accompanying “net zero” pledges of emission reductions by 2050. Accompanying Adam’s brilliant analysis is my transcript of his narrative, some added images, and, at the bottom, an embedded video of Adam’s related flick, “Too Late to Stop Climate Change.”

Alternatively, watch Adam’s video, without my transcript of course, by clicking on the following linked title to his You Tube site.

**********

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Dear David Attenborough, beautiful Netflix documentary. But your ‘solutions’ destroy nature even more

November 15, 2020

Dear David Attenborough, beautiful Netflix documentary. But your ‘solutions’ destroy nature even more

Dear Sir David Attenborough,

I recently saw your new film, A Life on Our Planet – a beautiful, harrowing documentary about the global decline of our natural ecosystems. It’s a bitter pill with a sweet dessert: a possible way out of this mess. I couldn’t help but choke on that dessert – because you suddenly mention the Netherlands as a leading example for the rest of the world.

As a Dutch person, this would be a great honour, if it weren’t for the fact that you are gravely mistaken.

Your reasoning is as follows. We humans are cultivating more and more land for agriculture to support our growing global population, thereby destroying natural ecosystems. The most important example is a seemingly endless succession of palm oil plantations in Borneo, built at the expense of the richest nature on Earth, including orangutans, our siblings in the canopy.

So, you say, we need to focus all our energies on cultivating more food on less land. “The Dutch have become experts at getting the most out of every hectare,” we hear you say with your familiar eloquent tone. “Despite its size, the Netherlands is now the world’s second largest exporter of food.”

According to you, the Netherlands has increased its production tenfold, while using fewer pesticides and artificial fertilisers, with lower CO2 emissions. We see tomatoes growing in futuristic greenhouses, and even vertical farming: heads of lettuce growing one above the other, 10 storeys high, illuminated by purple LED lighting.

But the fact that we are champion exporters is not because we pile heads of lettuce on top of each other or because we grow sustainable sci-fi tomatoes.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Humans May Have Passed the ‘Point of No Return’ in Climate Crisis, Says Study—But That Doesn’t Mean All Hope Is Lost

November 14, 2020

Humans May Have Passed the ‘Point of No Return’ in Climate Crisis, Says Study—But That Doesn’t Mean All Hope Is Lost

In order to roll back catastrophic carbon emissions, humans must “start developing the technologies for large-scale removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere,” says one of the study’s lead authors.

Melting permafrost in Canada's Northwest Territories, a sign of accelerating global heating. (Photo: Charles Tarnocai/Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada)

Melting permafrost in Canada’s Northwest Territories sends carbon-rich sediment into the Mackenzie Delta. (Photo: Charles Tarnocai/Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada)

Humanity may have passed the “point of no return” in the climate crisis—even if everyone on the planet stopped emitting all greenhouse gases at this very moment, according to a study published Thursday.

The study, published in the peer-reviewed British publication Scientific Journals, alarmingly asserts that “the world is already past a point of no return for global warming” and that the only way to halt the catastrophic damage caused by greenhouse emissions is to extract “enormous amounts of carbon dioxide… from the atmosphere.”

“[The crisis] simply will not stop from cutting manmade greenhouse emissions.”
—Jørgen Randers, study co-author

The crisis “simply will not stop from cutting manmade greenhouse gases,” Jørgen Randers, one of the study’s two lead authors, told Future Human. Humanity, stressed Randers, “should accelerate its effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions… and start developing the technologies for large-scale removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.”

What exactly does a “point of no return” mean for Earth and its inhabitants? The researchers describe “a threshold which, once surpassed, fundamentally changes the dynamics of the climate system,” including “by triggering irreversible processes like melting of the permafrost, drying of the rainforests, or acidification of surface waters.”

The researchers used a computer model called ESCIMO to simulate outcomes from various levels of CO2 reductions until the year 2500. They concluded that even an immediate reduction to zero greenhouse emissions would still result in a 3°C rise in global temperatures by 2500.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Great Reset

November 12, 2020

The Great Reset

The Great Reset Report is now available in the store. For our clients, this is available in a download PDF $29.95 because it is very important to understand who is behind this entire Coronavirus Scam and what are the objectives.

This report goes into great detail about a well funded & well-organized coalition to not just impose vaccines and depopulate the world, which may even be a ploy knowing they will not vaccinate China or Russia, but to actually destroy the world economy to end fossil fuels and impose by bribery and collusion their vision of how the world should function to stop Climate Change and impose by decree ZERO CO2.

We are facing massive unemployment as they wipe out industry and continue to try to keep people locked down to reduce CO2. For two months, Britain needed less electricity and they shut down coal plants. There is a fleet of cars that remain unsold and even Hertz was forced into bankruptcy. They have shut down tourism and Southern Europe will not survive without massive bailouts blowing the entire debt situation to insanity.

There are even two types of vaccines they have been developing. The first is the standard where they inject you with a portion of the virus. But Gates has also funded vaccines that operate totally differently. They are targeting your genetic DNA to alter it under the pretense it will prevent COVID-19.

Most people do not realize that former Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany who admitted he acted like a dictator to create the Euro denying the German people any right to vote on the question, was caught in 2000 with massive bribes he had taken and the CDU even distanced itself from him.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Leaked Document Reveals Exxon’s Plan To Increase Emissions As Energy Space Prepares For Decarbonization

October 5, 2020

Leaked Document Reveals Exxon’s Plan To Increase Emissions As Energy Space Prepares For Decarbonization

As oil majors prioritize their own decarbonization goals, an internal document viewed by Bloomberg reveals Exxon Mobil Corp. is planning to increase annual carbon-dioxide emissions output by as much as a small country like Greece.

Exxon is one of the biggest corporate emitters of greenhouse gasses globally, and the leak comes as the Texas-based company’s rivals, such as BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, are planning, or have already begun, to shrink oil and gas operations to become net-zero on carbon by 2050 or before.

The internal document revealed Exxon’s stunning investment strategy of more than $200 billion in energy investments that would increase its emissions by about 17% through 2025. These investments are projected to drive higher cash flows and double earnings. However, much of the strategy was developed in pre-virus pandemic times and has yet to be revised for a post-pandemic world of lower oil demand and collapsing energy prices.

But the planning documents show for the first time that Exxon has carefully assessed the direct emissions it expects from the seven-year investment plan adopted in 2018 by Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods. The additional 21 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year that would result from ramping up production dwarfs Exxon’s projections for its own efforts to reduce pollution, such as deploying renewable energy and burying some carbon dioxide.

These internal estimates reflect only a small portion of Exxon’s total contribution to climate change. Greenhouse gases from direct operations, such as those measured by Exxon, typically account for a fifth of the total at a large oil company; most emissions come from customers burning fuel in vehicles or other end uses, which the Exxon documents don’t account for.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BC Needs a ‘Wartime Approach’ to the Climate Emergency. And Now

October 2, 2020

BC Needs a ‘Wartime Approach’ to the Climate Emergency. And Now

The urgent response to the pandemic has shown us we can do it. We can’t dither another minute.

COVER.Coquitlam-Smoke.jpeg — Wildfire smoke reached Coquitlam, BC last month. Intensifying wildfires are just one indication that we, like the rest of the planet, aren’t doing enough to stop climate change. Photo by Joshua Berson.

All of us who heed the warnings of climate scientists are increasingly alarmed as we stare at the harrowing gap between what the science says is necessary and what our politics seems prepared to entertain. Despite decades of calls to action, our greenhouse gas emissions are not on a path to stave off a horrific future for our children and future generations.

Case in point: The accompanying chart tracks British Columbia’s emissions going back to the year 2000. What is evident is that, in the face of the defining challenge of our time, our politicians are not rising to the task at hand.

582px version of GHG_Chart.jpg — Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada: Tables IPCC Sector Canada.

Let this deeply disturbing chart sink in. And then let us all agree — political leaders, civil servants, environmental organizations, academics and policy wonks, labour leaders, socially responsible business leaders — that what we have been doing is simply not working. We have run out the clock with distracting debates about incremental changes.

But where it matters most — actual GHG emissions — we have accomplished precious little and have frequently slipped backwards. The most recent GHG data is from 2018, and B.C.’s new Clean BC climate plan was only introduced late that year, so it may yet show some progress. But our track record leaves much to be desired.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions are Fate

September 15, 2020

Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions are Fate

Mill, Halsey, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

I developed a model of Global Warming based on the anthropogenic perturbation of the Carbon Cycle. The essence of this model is a rate equation for the evolution of the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the atmosphere.

The interesting results from this model are projected trends for the CO2 concentration and the average global temperature during the next century. The character of those trends — whether rapid rises, shallow plateaus, or diminishment into the future — depend crucially on the magnitude of our civilization’s emissions of CO2, and whether those anthropogenic emissions increase or decrease with time. In the real world at present, they are increasing.

I have now been able to include the effect of linearly increasing or decreasing anthropogenic emissions into my Carbon Balance Model, which has been significantly improved.

This model also includes the effect of the increase in the rate at which atmospheric CO2 is absorbed by photosynthesis and the surface waters of the oceans, because those absorption rates are increasingly stimulated by the higher levels of CO2 in the air. This process of absorption-enhancement cannot continue indefinitely as the atmospheric CO2 concentration increases, but at what point of elevated CO2 concentration it saturates and then absorption largely shuts down, is unknown.

The third process included in the model is that of the slow absorption of atmospheric CO2 by the chemical reactions of weathering on the surfaces of rocks and soils. CO2 not “quickly” scavenged from the air by photosynthesis or the surface waters of the oceans will stay airborne for 12,000 to 14,000 years. The ~2,500ppm spike of atmospheric CO2 that occurred 55.5 million years ago took 200,000 years to clear away.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Net Zero Emissions Lie

September 13, 2020

The Net Zero Emissions Lie

Cutting carbon emissions has become a central focus of countries and companies alike in the past decade. The oil majors are racing to ‘go green, Microsoft has pledged to go ‘carbon negative’, and over 20 nations have either committed to or achieved net-zero carbon targets. For public companies, the incentives to go green are clear, with a recent boom in ESG investing, the continued threat of activist divestment, and a growing body of government regulation. Meanwhile, for governments, the environment is becoming an increasingly important electoral issue and political parties are eager to be seen as being proactive on the issue. But just as the ESG investment boom has led to an increase in the phenomenon of ‘greenwashing’, countries who are eager to make grand statements about being carbon zero within a decade or two may be overselling exactly what it is that they are doing.

Climate change is, by its very nature, a global problem. With that in mind, it is possible for one country to reduce its carbon emissions to zero without any reduction in the level of carbon emitted worldwide. As long as that same country continues to trade and consume, the carbon-reliant products it needs will simply be imported from a nation without any limits on carbon emissions. To claim ‘real’ net-zero emissions, countries would have to go significantly further.

That isn’t to say that the net-zero initiatives are entirely without merit. Increasing renewable energy usage, building more energy-efficient homes, and electrifying transportation would all have a tangible effect on decreasing global carbon emissions. But, as economist Dieter Helm points out in his recent book, if an individual state wants to truly become a net-zero carbon emitter, then it would need to have a carbon tax at its border as well as reducing its production of carbon domestically.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Big Oil’s Backers Are Jumping Ship — and That’s Good for the Planet

September 1, 2020

Big Oil’s Backers Are Jumping Ship — and That’s Good for the Planet

Investors, banks and even some oil and gas companies are breaking ranks on the future of high-emission energy.

Alberta’s oilsands are increasingly toxic for major investors concerned with global warming. Photo by Kris Krug, Creative Commons licensed.

The oil lobby’s political friends are melting away faster than an Alberta glacier. Every crack in that coalition is a foothold for a green and just recovery from the pandemic.

The latest sign was ExxonMobil being dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial Average on the same day that Storebrand, a major European investor, announced it was blacklisting the company over its anti-climate lobbying.

The Dow Jones Average is an index that tracks 30 large, publicly traded “blue chip” (read: financially sound) companies. Exxon and its predecessor companies had been part of the Dow Jones index since 1928, so that snub had to sting.

But Storebrand’s new climate policy is even more important.

The company is a major asset manager, with US$91 billion in investments. It announced that it would divest from companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron that are actively lobbying against the Paris Agreement or climate regulations.

“We are not only vulnerable to the systemic disruptions that climate change will unleash on ecosystems, societies and our own portfolio companies,” said Storebrand CEO Jan Erik Saugestad. “We also have a key role to play in accelerating the de-carbonization of the global economy.”

Storebrand also blacklisted companies that get more than five per cent of their revenues from coal or oilsands. Major investors like Blackrock, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and the Norwegian Oil Fund have announced similar exclusions as they, too, reduce their exposure to fossil fuels.

Yet Storebrand has consistently been about five years ahead of its peers on climate action, so expect “no lobbying against climate policy” to become the new norm amongst mainstream investors.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What Kind of a World do We Want? (…really?)

August 18, 2020

What Kind of a World do We Want? (…really?)

Although this question is both enduring and familiar, its present urgency is fully accentuated in a typically brilliant, but viscerally terrifying, exposition by Noam Chomsky on the current frangible condition of the world, and its near-term prognosis. However, I am also reminded of the strapline from the International Permaculture Conference, held in London in 2015, offering the intention and perhaps the means for “Designing the world we want.”

Chomsky never pulls a punch, as he strikes at layer on peeling layer of mendacity and fragility, from a prevailing framework whose groans, under the cumulative stresses of “growth”, should be heard as cries of threatening systemic collapse. The intermeshing quality of the world’s many woes has been conveyed by the term “changing climate” (i.e. climate change per se being just one item on the list), and amid a morass of such magnitude, positives are apt to remain obscured and muffled. Thus acknowledged, there could hardly be a better time than now, for a recasting of the world, having decided how we want it to be, in the broadest context, while there is still sufficient residual integrity to the whole that change might yet be managed, and full collapse is not yet inevitable, or already crumbling out of our hands.

It is no surprise that Covid-19 is a principal feature on the current global stage, and is probably the major focus of our concerns and attentions just now. While we cannot know how exactly everything will pan out, it is likely that the virus will be with us for some time, and we are entering a period of “recalibration” rather than a Post-Covid “back to normal”. Hence, focussing more on local and community resilience increasingly seems to make sense. We will certainly need to share support with our family, neighbours and friends, in the time to come.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Bigger cuts for Manchester – in its annual greenhouse gas emissions

August 3, 2020

Bigger cuts for Manchester – in its annual greenhouse gas emissions

Manchester now needs to make bigger cuts to its annual greenhouse gas emissions: A commentary on Manchester Climate Change Agency’s Annual Report

A brief Annual Report for 2020 has been issued by Manchester Climate Change Agency. It is not a long report so we encourage you to read it. However, we make the following comments.

A little background

The report is from the Manchester Climate Change Partnership. This is the arms length agency set up, but woefully under-resourced, by Manchester City Council. In principle that distance does give some scope for taking an independent line from the council, but the Partnership also has to keep the council “on-side”. For that reason independent critical voices are vital.

The introduction to the report refers to a letter the Partnership sent to the council. It makes the point that the Covid-19 pandemic gives us the

“… opportunity to reimagine the world we live in; the opportunity for citizens’ quality of life, health and wellbeing to become the overriding aim of politicians, business and community leaders; the opportunity to fundamentally reshape the global economy so it acts in the interests of people, planet and profits, and; the opportunity to ensure we can get on track to meet the 1.5-2°C aim of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.”

We agree. However, the council’s failure to seize the opportunity to put into place emergency and experimental mobility lanes for cyclists and other non-motorised road users, except within the city centre, would seem to indicate a reluctance to really seize the opportunity referred to. We will return to consider why actions are not meeting the scale of the climate challenge below.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: carbon emissions

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Post navigation

Latest Posts