What do I think, What can I do?

Posts tagged ‘climate change’

Transportation, mainly the road

In the world the CO2 emissions corresponding to the transport sector sum a 22% of the total.

Nonetheless this percentage varies seriously from country to country. Among the top emitters (next table), China and India do not reach the 10% emissions by transport, Germany and Japan are close to 18%, the USA are around 26% and some like Mexico or  Brazil are above 35%. So transport is very important depending on the location.

Transport Emissions Road Emissions
People’s Rep. of China 7.04% 5.48%
United States 30.21% 26.09%
India 9.93% 8.90%
Russian Federation 15.30% 8.85%
Japan 19.48% 17.59%
Germany 19.11% 18.51%
Korea 15.41% 14.52%
Canada 31.62% 26.02%
Islamic Rep. of Iran 23.31% 23.07%
United Kingdom 24.67% 22.90%
Saudi Arabia 23.42% 22.93%
Mexico 36.31% 35.34%
Indonesia 25.75% 22.59%
Italy 27.13% 25.58%
Brazil 42.82% 38.22%
Australia 21.44% 18.01%
France 34.56% 33.06%
South Africa 11.01% 10.23%
Poland 15.34% 14.99%
Chinese Taipei 13.12% 12.69%
Spain 36.42% 31.73%

Next histogram includes the distribution of these topo emitters but also the whole world, and in this case the panorama is even more complex with a range from less than 10% of the share until more than 90%.

Histogram of the transport share in country CO2 emissions for two populatios: All the world and the top 20 emitters, source of data IEA

Histogram of the transport share in country CO2 emissions for two populatios: All the world and the top 20 emitters, source of data IEA

Anyway, one thing is quite regular for all of them road is the main transport emission source, a 16% around the world but up to 80% in Congo or 35% in Mexico.

Meanwhile, americans are driving less, (reducing that 26%) some also talk about peak car there. One thing is clear, if we want to mitigate climate change, we will have to drive less (mas transit, bicycle, or just walk), do it more efficiently or change cars technology or all at the same time. In some cases it is not difficult to start saving CO2.

Category:

Transportation

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CO2, our salvation? Do not save us too much

Ice Age

Ice Age in the North Hemisphere, image from http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/ClimateChanging/

In a recent study CO2 appears our particular hero against the next ice-age. The study is really about the peatlands capacity to sink carbon and its influence in last glacial periods, but it have been used to weaken climate change concept.  In fact, coming ice-age is a repeated subject in skeptic blogosphere, for example here .

I am not able to judge the scientific value of the study, or have not check where it has been published, this is not the question of this post, it can be really prominent scientific work, while explained this way it is like being in a flood and thanking the river for the water that quenches one’s thirst.  The study recognizes the role of CO2 in planet climate, the peatlands are carbon sinks and in absence of human actions a new ice age would come in some moment, so, conceptually, it is not skeptic at all, but it lacks a simple sentence explaining that we are currently far from a new ice age.  Actually, if we burnt all these fossil fuel for that purpose we are done and we can stop for now. And here comes an interesting question for me (not really related to the paper):

If we had known beforehand that sending to the atmosphere all those gigatons of CO2 we would stop next ice age, would this giant transformation be OK ethically?

I am not sure, my first simple and emotional answer is a yes with many doubts.

Unfortunately we didn’t know all this 50-100 years ago so the only possible question now is: Should we stop sending tons of CO2 before going to an barbecue-age?

This answer is much easier: Yes and without delay.

This way we can even allow a future question: Should we save some fossil fuels for allowing future generations to allow controlled emission patterns to avoid future ice ages?

Certainly, I do not know what will say the grandsons of my grandsons of my grandsons. It is easier to imagine the opinions of our grandchildren: Stop and leave at least two-thirds of fossil fuels in the ground and we will think the best way to use them in the future.

 

 

Category:

climate ethics, skeptical about skeptics

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The rough figure of World emissions

CO2 Emission percentaje by production sector in the world, source of data IEA.

CO2 Emission percentage by production sector in the world, source of data IEA.

I frequently think that the climate change solution is in transforming the power production sector and consumers mentality somehow. However, many times remember too that transportation is important and I got in mind the simple figure that one out of three CO2 tons comes from transport. Rough numbers help but it is always better to be more precise, and the two figures in this blog follow this purpose. They have been obtained with the open data from the Internationa Egergy Agency (IEA) and show total emissions in 2010.

The first one, at the beginning, displays the emission proportions by emission production sectors. In some cases, these divisions are not easy to understand but the main conclusion can be that electricity production is responsible for more than 40% of emissions and this is good news in my opinion because the progress in low-carbon electricity production has been much fester than in other factors and because in fact there are many countries producing most of their electricity without fossil fuels. Transport and industry account for other more or less 20% each (in industry excluding electricity use). Transport is a bit lower that the 33% that I expected and it is mainly road transport. Residential sector is surprisingly low.

CO2 Emission percentaje by consuming sector in the world, source of data IEA.

CO2 Emission percentaje by consuming sector in the world, source of data IEA.

In the other hand, the last figure classifies the same data by consuming sector. So roughly, industry is the objects we use, transport is transport and residential our houses. In this case, industry leads the figure with 36%, and transport and residential follow close to 20%.

The main reference is that we should reach 10-20% of current emissions to be on the safe side, so we have to make important effort in all areas.

Category:

Climate change and politics, Renewable energy, Transportation

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Renewable possibilities in the third world

 

Bangladesh location in the earth from Wikipedia

Bangladesh location in the earth from Wikipedia

The installation of solar panels to electrify 1 million houses in Bangladesh is in my opinion great news, not just for the KWh produced for those people by clean means reducing some CO2 tons.

It also means that for poor people off-grid solar energy makes more sense than whole big investment in new grid systems fed by fossil fuels with uncertain costs in the future.

Al also means that the technology developed in rich countries (and not so rich ones) after a fossil fuel based 200 year industrialisation maybe effectively used to start using low-carbon electricity in places that have not known it before.

Symbolically means that it is possible to start improving every day  life conditions based on solar energy of small-scale without going the fossil way from the beginning, becoming rich and after that reducing emissions.

And finally, it means that for many people living with almost nothing in many places, they can dream of improving their living standards without spoiling the climate of their grandchildren.

Category:

Renewable energy, Small Great things

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Qatar government announcing big solar investment.

Qatar Coat of Arms, source: Wikipedia

Qatar Coat of Arms, source: Wikipedia

COP18 conference held in Qatar has produced at least a first beneficial output. The government has announced an important investment to produce 1800 MW by solar power out of a total electricity capacity of 7000 MW. Even better, they will encourage particulars to produce electricity at home by small solar panels with a feed-in-tarif.

As they explained, the official reason to such a political impulse in one of the mayor producers of liquefied gas is the reduction of cost and the abundance of sun in their home. Good reasons, I suppose that holding the COP18 being the biggest emitter (mentioned in many blogs) is another one.

I hope it will become true, because we need the commitment of everyone in this big challenge of climate change, and the competitions to avoid last places in this shameful classification could help.

Category:

Climate change and politics, Renewable energy

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COP 18: Another opportunity in Doha

COP 18 is the 18th international meeting to address the climate change problem. It is held in Doha . I listened the news in the radio this morning with quite a clear summary of the challenges involved and by the way a good explanation of climate change causes, encouraging but an exception, I would bet that most of my friends, family, coworkers have not heard about it.

This meetings should be very important as climate change problem requires global solutions to be shared by most countries. However,  the previous meetings have been at least partially frustrating as the advance is slow and the discussions are more predominant than the agreements. The figure below shows that the world emission path has continued to go upwards in spite of 17 COP meetings, so reached agreements are clearly insufficient. But we, the humans, need time to get agreements, the problem is that we are running out of the time to get a reasonable agreement for a reasonable future climate.

Graph showing CO2 emission path last years

Graph showing CO2 emission path last years, data from IEA

Media could play an important role to make those meetings more efficient and to help people know what is discussed there and how all of us are affected. A convinced world population could be a great force to seriously start climate change mitigation instead of adaptation.

By the way, the guest country Qatar is ranked 1st in per capita emissions in spite of their last year reductions (last figure). The comparison with USA, Germany, Japan or China (4 out of 5 economic powers in the world) is quite significant. If all of us would be emitting so much CO2 (I do not think it is possible) we would live  in an oven.

CO2 per capita emissions for 5 countries including Qatar (source of data CDIAC)

Category:

climate wars

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USA elections and Chinese change of leader

Xi Jinping leader, Source: Wikipedia

Xi Jinping leader, Source: Wikipedia

Maybe it’s to late to talk about Obama’s victory, but I don’t intend to be up to the fast pace of the news. Of course I got quite satisfied with USA elections results, due to the strong “drill baby drill” speech coming from Romey and more after the acceptance speech:

“We want our children to live in an America that isn’t burdened by debt, that isn’t weakened by inequality, that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet,”

This important election was extensively covered by many climate blogs as Climate Progress, or Quark Soup. Even Pieckle Sr, usually a blog without political content, mentioned USA elections comparing them to Chinese process.  And there is where I wanted to arrive, if USA elections were very important for the climate change politics due to many factors,Chinese leadership is not less and has not been covered at the same extent.

Both states are the biggest CO2 sources in the world, more than 40% of the emissions between them. And ,although far from the USA in per capita emissions China’s development has made them the leaders in this classification and it is still growing fast. It will not be possible to do something meaningful in climate change without the implication of China, so Xi Jinping¡s ideas about climate change are even more important than Obama¡s and I do not know them. Maybe, next days in COP18 we will start to see. At least I hope so.

 

Category:

Climate change and politics

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Ice Cube, a very strange telescope in the south pole

ice cubes

ice cubes

Recently I read some news about IceCube neutrino observatory in the south pole. It is an amazing installation looking for the secrets of those elusive particles and by extension to the secrets of distant galaxies, a kind of telescope really. It is not the only installation looking for neutrinos, but this is very special as it is built in the great ice desert of Antarctica. In fact, is uses the 3 Km of ice depth in this continent to find neutrinos.

I was amazed by the technology and imagination involved in this great telescope. Will it last when the climate changes?

I suppose so, I hope so, but did the scientific in charge consider this aspect? Too many times is not considered for medium to  long-term forecasts even in groups that do not deny it in any way

 

Category:

Interesting Consequences

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Local vegetables reduce Carbon Footprint

At home, we take part in a local group of vegetable and egg buy/sell. The idea is good and simple. A local producer grows vegetables (in this case ecological ones but it is not compulsory for this idea), it packs some bags every week with some variety of them depending on the season and leaves them on monday in one place. During that day the ten customers take the bags and discover the surprise of that week in form of fresh, healthy and local food. The payments are done for three months periods and the producer gets a fixed customer group that visit  him/her every year.

There are many advantages as promoting local jobs in primary sector, avoiding complex intermediate markets, the confidence between customer and producer,… and the reduction of Kms for the vegetables and the associated CO2, I always consider funny that the lettuce I am eating has traveled more than me in the last year.

This possibility is possible, it is reasonable and it is growing!

Category:

Small Great things, Uncategorized

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Senda Viva entertraining, but a lost opportunity for climate change

Photograph from Senda Viva, a flag showing environmental commintment

Photograph from Senda Viva, a flag showing environmental commitment

Last weekend, we enjoyed a very nice day at Senda Viva . A place I would define as a combination of Zoo, amusement park and small circus. It is focused on children and does its job well.

Maybe for the focus or just for the paths of my mind, I remembered my recent experience in Loro Parque. But this time I did not find the smallest mention to climate change, it is true that any other messages were scarce too so in some sense it could be too much to ask them for this kind of favored approach. However I found three small reasons to do so:

1.- The first is for survival. Senda Viva has good installations and attractions but suffers from extreme weather in summer and winter. With changed climate it can be even worse, and this can negatively affect the future of the project.

2.- When children are involved the educational point of view is always present in some sense. So it is better to remain them the challenges of their future world.

3.- The last is just a detail. There is a very nice view of the whole region in the top of a small mountain and some windmills are named along with some thermal power stations, why not other windmills of solar power stations that are an unavoidable part of Navarre’s landscape?

 

 

Category:

Small Great things

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