A new beginning?

Carbon emissions

Need to know

Climate change refers to the long-term changes in temperatures and climate patterns, that although may occur naturally, have been worsening exponentially due to human activity.

Carbon Zero and Carbon Neutral have become crucial in this scenario, but is there something new on the horizon?

Ever since the XIX century, human activities have been the main cause of climate change, mainly due to the use of fossil fuels such as carbon, oil, and gas. It hasn’t been that long since world governments, international organizations, and the general society recognized the urgency to stop global warming, a path that many still find difficult to thread.

The lack of commitment has led scientists to believe that we may fail to keep global warming below 2°C by 2100, a goal stated in the Paris Climate Agreement.

Nevertheless, not everything is lost. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that decarbonization and negative emissions are still achievable strategies, and yet how difficult are the challenges they pose?

3 scopes: all for one, and one for all

To start, the issues of scope emissions and carbon footprint need to be brought up.

The carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide and methane) that are generated by our actions. The cars we drive and the air-conditioning we use consume energy (mostly from a fossil source), but also do the boxes we ship, the products we manufacture, and the emissions from the food we eat. Every single act of consumption: they all add up.

This use of energy is considered in a series of scopes. Developed by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol in 2016, these serve to identify emissions’ locations and other aspects crucial to neutralize them.

Scope 1 emissions are direct, on-site. Most of our daily activities could be included here. For example, fuelled cars release carbon into the atmosphere.

Although accounting for Scope 1 emissions would improve air quality and pollution, it would not be enough to solve the climate crisis.

Scope 2 emissions are indirect, which means they are associated with the generation and transport of energy prior to consumption.

Here we aren’t causing the emissions directly, but our daily consumption of products and services fuels it. Therefore, we need to consider where the energy used there originally came from.

Scope 3 emissions are also indirect, now taking into account all upstream releases of gases. This scope has turned into the main focus, as neutralizing its carbon is the most effective path to fight the climate crisis.

In this area, two models are on the hype: Zero Carbon and Carbon Neutral.

Zero Carbon: the true hero

Even though they both are industrial models looking forward to solving the climate crisis, their measures are on distinct levels.

Theoretically speaking, Zero Carbon involves no emissions at all, neither direct nor indirect. No first, second, or third scope. No carbon emissions upstream, neither by energy suppliers nor at any other production point. However excellent this idea is, most companies will find this goal difficult to achieve.

Carbon Neutral: one hand washes the other

Carbon Neutral proposes offsetting the effect of indirect upstream emissions, either by planting in areas without previous vegetation or through new decarbonization techniques that are still under development. The latter would prevent carbon from reaching the atmosphere, hence mitigating the climate crisis.

Nevertheless, this concept is not as easy as it may sound, and we have yet to see whether it can properly be scaled up to a global level.

As challenging this climate crisis may be, it may also be a chance for a new beginning. One in which human activities seize to damage the environment, and where we all become conscious on how our lifestyle affects our surroundings.

But for that to be a reality there is still too much terrain to be covered, since these techniques are all under development. What was depicted in the last section was only an introduction. So for further information on Zero Carbon and Carbon Neutral, be sure to visit their respective pages.

After all, many questions still need to be answered, solutions founded, and actions taken.