Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions Fall in 2009 – Past Decade Still Sees Rapid Emissions Growth
Amy Heinzerling
In 2009, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in China—the world’s leading emitter—grew by nearly 9 percent. At the same time, emissions in most industrial countries dropped, bringing global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use down from a high of 8.5 billion tons of carbon in 2008 to 8.4 billion tons in 2009. Yet this drop follows a decade of rapid growth: over the 10 previous years, global CO2 emissions rose by an average of 2.5 percent a year—nearly four times as fast as in the 1990s. Increasing temperatures and the resulting melting ice sheets and rising sea levels demonstrate the destructive effects of the carbon accumulating in the atmosphere.
Emissions in [...]
Will Costa Rica be the world’s first carbon neutral country?
While in Costa Rica last Fall, I wrote a number of posts about that country’s ongoing commitment to sustainability. In
one of them I mentioned Costa Rica’s goal to become the world’s first carbon neutral country.
According to Environment and Energy Minister Roberto Dobles, Costa Rica will achieve this using budgeting, laws, and incentives, such as promoting biofuels, hybrid vehicles, and clean energy. This Latin American country already embraces the “C-Neutral” label that will certifies that tourism and certain industrial practices mitigate all of the CO2 they emit.
This new certification incorporates a voluntary tax on businesses and tourists alike to offset their carbon emissions, with one ton of carbon valued at $10. To further entrench C-Neutral, the country is cultivating a carbon certificate market that not only boosts carbon [...]
Copenhagen Summit severly limits NGO participation
With the eyes of the world on Copenhagen and the U.N. Climate Change Conference, it seems that organizers will be limiting who can get inside during the last most critical decision-making sessions.
While 45,000 people are registered, today and tomorrow only 7,000 civilian observers will be allowed entrance, with those numbers reduced to 1,000 on Thursday and a mere 90 allowed in the conference center by Friday, the day of final negotiations.
A coalition of 50 NGOs ( non-government organizations) has drafted a formal letter protesting this move, saying the restrictions are a breach of Denmark’s obligation to provide public access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters.
In response to this [...]
One child’s voice speaks out to Copenhagen
As delegates from 192 nations around the world begin meetings in Copenhagen today, they would do well to remember the words of a child.In 1992, then 12-year old Severen Suzuki of the Environmental Organization (ECO) of Canada addressed the delegates of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro.
In a passionate speech, she presented an indictment and plea to the assembled delegates to remember why they were there.
Suzuki reminded them that in school, their children learned to share, to clean up their messes, to work with others. She asked them why these were things they weren’t doing themselves. She painted a picture of a world where she was afraid of breathing the [...]
The Un-Sustainability of palm oil
At the end of the conference on sustainable tourism, I flew to the first of three eco-resorts I’d be visiting while here in Costa Rica. While flying from San Jose (Costa Rica, that is) to the city of Quepos on a small plane via Sansa Air, I looked out the window. What I saw was troubling.
After hearing a great deal at the conference about Costa Rica’s reforestation efforts, I thought at first the acres and acres of trees I was seeing were just that – tree reforestation areas. Everything was laid out neatly, symmetrically and close together. But it looked too perfect and my intuition said something wasn’t right here.
As we got closer to the airport and flew [...]
Costa Rica signs Agreement to offset airline flight emissions
At yesterday’s international conference on Sustainable Tourism, Costa Rica’s Minister of Energy, the head of CANACEO and the head of the division of Forestry signed the Climate Conscious Travel Agreement.
This historic document outlines a unique carbon offset compensation program designed to to offset tourist-related CO2 flight emissions while reducing Costa Rica’s deforestation.
Air transporation represents 95 percent of all CO2 emissions in Costa Rica.
CANAECO will work with tour operators and hotels, acting as a “reservation center” to distribute tour certificates. Shared fees from the three tourist-related sectors will be funneled to Costa Rica non-profits such as the National Forestry Financing Fund and the Sustainable Biodiversity Fund (the latter an arm of the World Bank) for programs to help avoid deforestation. [...]
Eli Lilly achieves energy efficiency goals 2 years early
Eli Lilly and Company, a worldwide pharmaceutical company, has reached and surpassed their energy reduction goals two years ahead of schedule.
Although the reductions are modest – cutting absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 4.4 percent, cutting absolute energy use by 5.8 percent from 2004 to 2008 – Lilly did improve their energy use per dollar of sales by 35 percent.
Lilly has set a new goal of reducing GHG emissions by 15 percent by2013, which will cut CO2 emissions by nearly 340,000 metric tons per year.
Lilly’s continuing environmental efforts on a variety of fronts include:
reducing water intake 25 percent by 2013
reducing waste disposed in landfills by 40 percent by 2013
Both are compared to a [...]
Brazil takes on deforestation
In today’s Bioneers conference, speaker Jim Garrison announced that Brazil has taken on the “80 in ‘20″ goals big time.
For those who don’t know, that’s reducing CO2 emissions by 80% by the year 2020.
Brazil’s media – one of the largest in the world – has is actively supporting the “2020″ movement. According to Garrison, Brazil’s media is running environmental advertising daily to remind and support people about cutting carbon emissions., something unheard of on this side of the Gulf of Mexico.
Also, Garrison said that the governors of the Amazon regions have committed to reducing deforestation of the Amazon to help meet those 2020 goals. This unprecedented commitment – coming from politocos in [...]
Promises of Emission cuts are snowballing
The news is rampant with promises by corporate giants of large emissions cuts in the wake of the UN Climate Talks currently taking place in New York City.
The International Air Transport Association announced that airlines will cut 50 percent of their CO2 emissions by 2050. Representing 230 airlines which make up 93 percent of scheduled international air traffic, the association is targeting a 1.5 percent average annual improvement in fuel efficiency through 2020. Of course consumers can expect higher fares as fallout from adopting newer, more sustainable, energy efficient planes and related technologies.
On the corporate side, HP has raised their goal to reduce energy consumption and related greenhouse gas emissions from its products to a 40 percent reduction by 2011, [...]