<
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/11/14/a-rare-reason-for-optimism-about-climate-change>
"THERE HAS been some small progress in the fight against climate change. The
Global Carbon Budget, a forecast of the sources of greenhouse-gas emissions and
the sinks which absorb it, showed that growth in carbon emissions is slowing
(see chart). In the early 2000s the rate at which humans produced these
pollutants increased by about 3% a year. In the past decade it has fallen to
0.5%.
A lot more progress is needed. Still, a near-plateau offers hope that emissions
may eventually decline. This drop in emissions growth is the result of two
factors. The first is that the global economy is much less carbon-intensive
than it used to be. The amount of energy required to produce a unit of GDP has
fallen by 26% since 2000. Unlike in earlier periods of growth, increases in
prosperity no longer require a similar rise in global energy use. Slower growth
in the use of fossil fuels to supply that energy (especially coal, the dirtiest
one) has further helped curb the growth of emissions.
The second factor concerns emissions due to land-use change. Getting rid of
carbon sinks, by cutting down forests for farmland or digging up peatland for
fuel, has a big impact on global emissions: a farm absorbs less carbon than
does a rainforest. The Global Carbon Project, the outfit that calculates the
budget, estimates that deforestation produces about 7 gigatonnes of carbon
dioxide each year. Although the pace of deforestation continues unchanged,
reforestation elsewhere has stepped up. New forest growth is absorbing nearly 4
gigatonnes of carbon dioxide annually, up from about 2 gigatonnes in 1990."
Via
Future Crunch issue 191:
https://futurecrunch.com/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
