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Posts tagged emissions
The Latest Carbon Con: Carbon Offsets Allow Increase of Emissions
Jun 19th
Rich nations could increase emissions under pledge loopholes, UN data shows
via The Guardian
June 9, 2010
Developing countries were today shocked by new UN data showing that rich nations will be able to increase their carbon emissions by up to 8% if they take advantage of a series of major loopholes in their pledges.
Instead of reducing emissions by a minimum of 30-40% by 2020 and holding temperatures to a rise of 2C – as many campaigners hoped the Copenhagen climate summit in December would achieve – many rich countries would not need to make any domestic cuts to stay within the legal limits of a new global climate deal being negotiated at resumed UN talks in Bonn this week.
The figures, which are far higher than expected, could be achieved by a series of carbon accountancy tricks and devices including:
• Selling “hot air” or surplus carbon allowances that were created when Soviet economies collapsed in the late 1980s;
• Using carbon markets to “offset” as much as 30% of rich countries’ emission cuts;
• Setting new rules to calculate emission gains and losses from logging and planting trees.
No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds
Jan 1st
ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2009) — Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.
However, some studies have suggested that the ability of oceans and plants to absorb carbon dioxide recently may have begun to decline and that the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is therefore beginning to increase.
Many climate models also assume that the airborne fraction will increase. Because understanding of the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide is important for predicting future climate change, it is essential to have accurate knowledge of whether that fraction is changing or will change as emissions increase.
To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.
In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.
The research is published in Geophysical Research Letters.
Man’s Carbon Footprints on the Big Blue Marble
Dec 30th
Are they fueling a climate catastrophe?
via YouTube – Man’s Carbon Footprints on the Big Blue Marble.
CNN calls humans “pigs” for emitting CO2
Dec 21st
Rich countries want the developing world to agree to mandatory cuts, saying that’s where most new emissions come from. Poorer nations say that per person, the rich world is much dirtier and has been polluting for much longer.
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