Posts Tagged ‘Climate crisis’
Wonky Carbon Accounting Hides NZ’s Feeble Paris Commitment
New Zealand’s commitment under the Paris Agreement, as stated in our Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) (1), which became our Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) after we ratified the agreement in October 2016 (2), reads as follows:
Emissions will be reduced to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. The 2005 reference has been chosen for ease of comparability with other countries. This responsibility target corresponds to a reduction of 11% from 1990 levels.
At face value, the above statement appears clear and understandable, but it is actually quite unclear because there are two accepted measures for emissions: gross or total emissions; and net emissions which are total emissions less deductions allowed for land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF), which in our case relate mainly to carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere by trees. Neither the New Zealand INDC, nor the supplementary NDC documentation, state clearly whether we are using gross emissions, net emissions, a mix of these, or some other measure to define our Paris target.
Social Impacts of Climate Change
Climate change, combined with a number of factors including groundwater extraction and other pressures from population increases, is already impacting people who live in areas vulnerable to sea level rise, drought, or ice melt, many of whom are poor.
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Climate Change and Sea Level Rise
Current predictions are that global warming will likely heat up the world’s lower atmosphere between 2°C and 6°C by 2100. These temperature rises may not seem significant, but for some components of earth/ocean systems, they have huge implications. One of these is the effect on the world’s oceans and land-based ice reservoirs that will cause accelerating sea-level rise.
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Climate Change and Primary Industry in New Zealand
The annual carbon dioxide equivalent of total global emissions is about 49 Gigatonnes (49 thousand million tonnes), using figures from 2010. Of this, ‘Agriculture’ produced about 11% (mostly as methane, but also N2O). Other ‘Land use,’ including carbon dioxide release from forest and peat burning, produced about 10%.
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New Zealand Energy Security And Climate Change
This paper sets out the case for taking early and effective action to improve New Zealand’s energy security, and doing so in a manner which minimises New Zealand’s future greenhouse gas emissions
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Climate Change Mitigation – Rapid Change Needed To Restrict Global Warming To Below 2°C
The world’s climate is changing, but it remains possible to slow down the speed and extent of change if all countries, including New Zealand, play their part. Rapidly deploying the many different types of mitigation technologies and available measures and developing effective policies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can also produce many additional benefits that offset their overall cost.
Read MoreThe Carbon Cycle – Towards Becoming Carbon Neutral
Early chemists believed that organic compounds were fundamentally different because they contained a vital force that was only found in living systems. In fact, the common elements in all organic compounds are hydrogen and carbon.
Read MoreEthical Issues and Climate Change
Human–induced climate change is widely regarded as one of the greatest – if not the greatest – moral challenges of the 21st century. Not merely does it raise numerous ethical issues, but many of these are profoundly difficult and take us to the limits of our moral imagination. Moreover, the ethical dilemmas posed by climate change arise at multiple levels – for citizens, scientists, policymakers, organisations, companies, nation-states, and the international community – and traverse many different areas of moral inquiry.
Read MoreOcean Acidification – The Other CO2 Problem
Ocean acidification (OA) has been described as “global warming’s evil twin” and is considered by many scientists to be one of the greatest environmental challenges to marine organisms in the 21st century. Long-term records have shown a decrease in average ocean pH of 0.1 units since the beginning of the industrial age (from 8.21 to 8.10), and pH is expected to decrease a further 0.3 to 0.4 units by 2100, resulting in seawater that contains 150% more H+ than present.
Read MoreThe Importance Of Methane
Concern about the emissions of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) that causes Climate Change focuses primarily on carbon dioxide (CO2), which is an unavoidable consequence of burning fossil fuels. However, methane (CH4) is an increasingly important contributor to Climate Change.
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