Positive action on climate change and sustainability

[Daftasabroom]

So I've been thinking for a while that there is too much negative news around climate change and sustainability. Whether that's Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion gluing themselves to things, or various MN posters either denying the science or our power as individuals to change the world.

As an antidote I'd like to offer up a thread encouraging meaningful things we can do as individuals, communities and companies to address the climate challenges we face.

Air travel emissions may only account for 2% of overall GHG emissions but my understanding is that they go directly into the atmosphere making them more damaging in terms of flying. Also it is quite easy for most people to cut back on flying (I am limiting myself to once a year) but not so easy to do without heating...

@PurpleParrotfish I have worked, and still do, across multiple sectors. Aero are investing massively on net zero and will get there around 2050. I also found a paper on atmospheric emissions today including NOx and water vapour, it gives a figure of 3.5%. I'll post the link tomorrow.

Interestingly there was an R4 article on meat just before PM today, one of the contributors proposed that a 30% reduction in meat consumption in the UK could be net zero.

I think what irks me about the focus on meat and flying is that it can deflect from potentially much more difficult challenges at the same time as ignoring many of the nuances related to climate change and mitigation.

I think you sum up a lot of things really well.

Emissions are measured in terms of global warming potential over a hundred year period for a really wide range of substances. So the gas CO2 is the baseline at 1 compared to methane at 84. Some of the gases that contain flourene are up to 22,000 times as powerful as CO2. (I'm on my phone so don't have access to the full list.)

And yes, it's easy for most people to cut back on flying, and the majority of us don't it that often anyway.

And absolutely the way we heat our homes and businesses is really challenging.

Housing associations are leading the way in terms of retrofitting homes energy efficiency. We have a target of all properties epc band c by 2030. There is the social housing decarbonisation fund wave 2 that’s just closed to help fund this everything else as far as we know currently will have to be self funded.
Carbon accounting/ reporting is pretty much mandatory for a lot of businesses. Plc have to report according to climate risk financial disclosures. Other business have to report in line with SECR. SECR doesn’t include scope 3 emissions as mandatory but if we want to get to net zero we have to be able to measure these so doesn’t have to be mandatory as such it’s going to be kind of forced naturally. Smaller business will get into gear as their larger customers ask for this info to procure their services.

It does frustrate me when people seem to get stuck on the very micro level like reusable coffee cups, but there is an important role for behaviour change. Here is a recent report from a parliamentary committee getting very frustrated with the government's refusal to even give people simple information about how they can help the planet with their diet and travel choices. The committee estimated a third of the UK’s emissions reductions must come from people’s behaviour changing.

As the situation is so catastrophically urgent, we need to do everything all at once - where we get our energy from, insulating our homes, changing the way we plan our cities to make greener travel easier etc etc. In an ideal world social norms of behaviour start to shift, people also demand more of government and corporations and we get a virtuous circle, avoiding the trap of focusing too much on individual consumer choices and not enough on system change. That's the theory... (looking at news about the clusterfuck the UK is right now it feels a long way off).

Probably best to agree to differ on the aviation thing, but I think in practice the focus on technology in 2050 gives a get out of jail free card for the sector's emissions to carry on expanding for the foreseeable future, when we are supposed to be halving global emissions by 2030. Also there's a big reliance on carbon offsetting which is increasingly being shown to be a massive scam. And I am really sceptical about the idea that in 2050 we can all fly as much as today or even more and the fuels /renewable capacity required can be scaled up to allow that.

@PurpleParrotfish

There's good info on CO2 emissions by travel mode here. I calculated CO2 emissions for a long distance journey I do a couple of times a year and no matter which combination I chose and they came out really close.

You mention individual emissions and the wealthy in particular, again I'd challenge that. The truly wealthy regularly taking long haul flights and with big old draughty mansions are relatively few so will not make a significant contribution to overall emissions. If you drill down into some of the evidence in the "In our hands" report you cite it's clear that focusing on or two things is really not going to do much.

More concerning to me is the vast number of people using the excuse that until celebrities stop using private jets they are going to continue driving around in their big old SUVs. See discourse of climate delay. Which is a pretty good segue into behaviour because too many people seem to think sustainability and net zero will require everyone to turn off the heating, eating veg and no travel. I personally think net zero will give us more balanced lives, cleaner air, healthier diets etc. (the reason for this thread is support that).

Don't get me started on housing, and commercial buildings, and schools and hospitals etc - that really is going to require some pretty big government attention.

The clean energy technologies (with the exception of fusion) will be ready to go in 3 to 10 years and certified in maybe 3 to 15 (depending on sector).

There are three really big challenges however:

• Fuel supply (and competition for supply) and infrastructure, leccy pretty simple but battery materials are becoming a worry, PtL or syngas - more complex but could use existing infrastructure, hydrogen difficult
• Supply chain - who's going to manufacture all the things
• Skills - who's going to make, maintain, service and repair these things.

Totally agree carbon offsetting is a crock of shit.

But what about this www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-59157836 @Daftasabroom

@bluejelly I think that's a pretty good example of the spin, and what aboutism, that I think is so dangerous.

99 x 2.4 = 237
1 x 70 = 70

I'm in no way defending the wealthy, given the opportunity I'd raise taxes on the 1% and spend the money on upgrading UK buildings.

Individuals can't drive change, not unless we completely change how we vote... as Govts drive change e.g on Ozone emissions.
Look at EV cars, hydrogen would be the best option but we don't get that choice, we get environmentally damaging EV's., we get expensive/polluting trains, we get leisure centres closed, no schemes to insulate homes, look at the hatred anyone who cycles on the roads gets, to see how far away we are from taking CC and our behaviors seriously.

The melting of the permafrost's, increased use of coal... war in europe, cutting down on your flights wont change a thing... might make you feel good....CO2 emissions are soaring away.

USA and EU are pouring billions into Green investments, the UK voted to take itself out of the EU :( and out of European Green investments.

On a positive, the UK is very good at setting targets we will never achieve!

Its depressing but the reality is we've screwed ourselves, future generations and the planet, all we might eventually do is some mitigation e.g flood defence or moving vineyards further north!!!

I sometimes think the fictional film The Day the Earth Stood Still with Keanu Reeves was actually a documentary.

@Alexandra2001 I suggest you take a quick look at the paper on discourses of delay I linked to up thread. Sadly attitudes like yours make you as much a part of the problem as the people and organisations you criticise.

Why do you think hydrogen would be a better choice than EV? Have you any idea on challenges hydrogen poses?

If hydrogen isn't ready yet, then surely cutting the sizes of fossil fuel engines would be better than going down the route of battery production and thats before we get to the production of electricity to charge them.... or the practical issues of being able to charge on single phase and the costs of them.

Outside of specific sectors, no one needs a car larger than 1 litre and no one needs to tow a caravan or horse box for leisure but try banning either and see how far you get?

How is a community carer going to buy a Nissan Leaf when their Fiesta packs up? or charge it when visiting clients...let alone afford batteries when they pack up 5 years later... its all pie in the sky.

The challenges of hydrogen is dwarfed by the issues of EV's.

Renewables aren't going to be a reliable means of producing power for EV's or industry until we have storage and nuclear is extremely expensive and not pollution free and takes decades to build.

But personal transport is just one issue, shipping is a huge challenge too but who cares if we ship car parts around the world using heavily polluting planes and ships so long as we get a nice "green" Tesla.

I ve been into CC long before it became fashionable and nothing that has happened in the last 30 plus years gives me any hope at all we can change.

@Alexandra2001 This thread is specifically about positive action on climate change, can I ask what positive steps you have taken? Doomism is just another excuse.

In what way is H2 dwarfed by BEVs?

No body ships car parts by plane.

Shipping is absolutely a challenge.

Internal combustion engines (ICE) have been increasingly less polluting for years.

If you've been following CC for 30 years you'll know that UK emissions are roughly half what they were 30 years ago.

Sorry the per capita emissions have halved since 1992.

Our world in data

There isn't anything positive to say, until people get their heads round this simple truth, they will carry on kidding themselves that cutting back on a flight or doing a bit of recycling is enough.

If you've been following CC for 30 years you'll know that UK emissions are roughly half what they were 30 years ago

By off shoring, exporting pollution to 3rd countries, Global emissions are out of control, this a WW issue not a UK only one.

Each year more than 52 billion tonnes of cargo are shipped by air

Yes ICE's are less polluting but if we limited their size, they d be even better but we won't.

I ve explained the challenges of EV's, cost, charging & electricity production.

Hydrogen will replace EV's, its the only alternative that will meet peoples demands & costs for personal transport & its no more insurmountable than putting gas, electricity and sanitation into every home.

We need urgent action just to slow the rate of change, we are in fact doing the opposite, there is no urgency to our actions.

There is lots of good news on the climate change front.

While UK carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions peaked in 1972, once we consider imported emissions – such as when the UK imports products that are manufactured abroad – UK emissions peaked in 2007. The biggest source of these “imported” emissions is China, followed by the EU.

Emissions produced directly by the UK declined as the result of a combination of environmental policies and a shift of the UK economy from more carbon-intensive manufacturing to less carbon-intensive service-based industries.

When looking at the UK’s directly produced emissions, which continue to fall, the energy generation (negative 67%), manufacturing (negative 43%), water supply (negative 38%), and transport (negative 33%) sectors saw the biggest falls in emissions between 1990 and 2017.

The change from coal to renewable energy has resulted in UK CO2 emissions continuing to fall.

Importantly, growth in the economy no longer comes at the cost of environmental damage:

According to the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) theory, the decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation eventually occurs after a certain GDP per head level. This is because higher economic development leads to environmental awareness, enforcement of environmental regulations and better technology, resulting in the gradual decline of environmental degradation. In a UK context, environmental awareness and a political appetite for enforcement of environmental regulations may have been a precedent for the eventual reduction in CO2 emissions.

For the UK, the approximate turning point at which the decoupling of GDP per head and carbon dioxide emissions seemed to have happened was in 1985, with a GDP per head of £16,667 and corresponding CO2 emissions of around 586 million tonnes, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 4 shows absolute decoupling of real GDP per head and carbon dioxide emissions, with 1985 as the base year to reflect changes following the decoupling. Real GDP per head grew by 70.7% between 1985 and 2016 while carbon dioxide emissions declined by 34.2% during the same period.

Sorry forgot the ONS link to the report I’ve quoted above.
www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/uksectoraccounts/compendium/economicreview/october2019/thedecouplingofeconomicgrowthfromcarbonemissionsukevidence/previous/v1

Shipping is absolutely a challenge.
Several shipping companies are ordering carbon neutral tcontainer ships:
“The world’s biggest shipping company is investing $1.4bn (£1bn) to speed up its switch to carbon neutral operations, ordering eight container vessels that can be fuelled by green methanol as well as traditional bunker fuel .

The Danish shipping business Maersk said the investment in new vessels would help to ship goods from companies including H&M Group and Unilever, while saving more than 1m tonnes of carbon emissions a year by replacing older fossil fuel-driven ships.” July 2021
www.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/24/worlds-biggest-shipping-firm-maersk-in-1bn-green-push

Maersk is also partnering to help other companies decarbonise their fleets
cms.zerocarbonshipping.com/media/uploads/documents/Press-Release_Fleet-Decarbonization-Optimizer_1_Feb_2022.pdf

I ve been into CC long before it became fashionable and nothing that has happened in the last 30 plus years gives me any hope at all we can change.

This seems rather pessimistic to me as we (U.K. and Europe) have changed massively over the past 30yrs.

If by we you mean the entire planet, well I would agree it is a bit depressing really how other countries are not doing their bit and of course throwing up excuses like it’s the fault of the British Empire or what-ever…and we have to pay them to change. 😕 We are skint as a country, we have no money to give them. And we aren’t even in the top 25 richest countries either…

Why would anyone use electricity to create hydrogen from water, pipe it through an incredibly lossy network to either burn it or turn it back into electricity again, when you go out and buy heat pump today that will provide 4 or 5 times?

Aside from the efficiency, hydrogen at gas network pressure has such low volumetric energy density you wouldn't be able to heat a hamster cage let alone a home.

Hydrogen absolutely has it's place as a fuel of the future but not for domestic or commercial heating.

@Alexandra2001 By off shoring, exporting pollution to 3rd countries, Global emissions are out of control, this a WW issue not a UK only one.

I don't deny CC is a WW issue but UK consumption based emissions have also fallen considerably over the 30 years. The vast majority of emissions come from burning fossil fuels, for transport, for electricity generation, and for heat. So while offshore emissions haven't fallen as fast as Scope 1 and 2 they have a relatively low impact.

Here’s a bit more info
There are very large inequalities in per capita emissions across the world.

The world’s largest per capita CO2 emitters are the major oil producing countries; this is particularly true for those with relatively low population size. Most are in the Middle East: In 2017 Qatar had the highest emissions at 49 tonnes (t) per person, followed by Trinidad and Tobago (30t); Kuwait (25t); United Arab Emirates (25t); Brunei (24t); Bahrain (23t) and Saudi Arabia (19t).

However, many of the major oil producers have a relatively small population meaning their total annual emissions are low. More populous countries with some of the highest per capita emissions – and therefore high total emissions – are the United States, Australia, and Canada. Australia has an average per capita footprint of 17 tonnes, followed by the US at 16.2 tonnes, and Canada at 15.6 tonnes.

This is more than 3 times higher than the global average, which in 2017 was 4.8 tonnes per person.

Since there is such a strong relationship between income and per capita CO2 emissions, we’d expect this to be the case: that countries with high standards of living would have a high carbon footprint. But what becomes clear is that there can be large differences in per capita emissions, even between countries with similar standards of living. Many countries across Europe, for example, have much lower emissions than the US, Canada or Australia.

In fact, some European countries have emissions not far from the global average: In 2017 emissions in Portugal are 5.3 tonnes; 5.5t in France; and 5.8t per person in the UK. This is also much lower than some of their neighbours with similar standards of living, such as Germany, the Netherlands, or Belgium. The choice of energy sources plays a key role here: in the UK, Portugal and France, a much higher share of electricity is produced from nuclear and renewable sources – you can explore this electricity mix by country here. This means a much lower share of electricity is produced from fossil fuels: in 2015, only 6% of France’s electricity came from fossil fuels, compared to 55% in Germany.

Prosperity is a primary driver of CO2 emissions, but clearly policy and technological choices make a difference.

Many countries in the world still have very low per capita CO2 emissions. In many of the poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa – such as Chad, Niger and the Central African Republic – the average footprint is around 0.1 tonnes per year. That’s more than 160 times lower than the USA, Australia and Canada. In just 2.3 days the average American or Australian emits as much as the average Malian or Nigerian in a year.

ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions

@Alexandra2001 I ve explained the challenges of EV's, cost, charging & electricity production.

No you haven't, you stated your unsubstantiated opinion. Everything I have posted I can backup with peer reviewed papers.

UK consumption based emissions have also fallen considerably over the 30 years.. I have a chart for that. All this data is in the U.K. profile
ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-kingdom?country=~GBR

So the idea that we’ve simply offshored emissions and therefore emissions “are out of control” isn’t borne out by the data.

Good stuff @Onnabugeisha when oil is extracted from the ground it also contains significant amounts of volatile liquids and gases which could become dangerously explosive during distribution. To mitigate this the volatiles are burned off in flaring.

Fugitive emissions, basically flaring and gas leaks are responsible for 5.7% of all global emissions, that's 1.5x the entire aviation sector (including water vapour).