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| Unsustainable Developments |
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It seems like we right now are running hard from facing the truths and some associated pain, and that in at least two instances that are striking for their similarities: the global financial crisis and climate change. Let me begin with the financial crisis. The main problem of the financial crisis is that levels of debt have become too large and cannot be repaid by the original debtors. Lenders and many politicians are now desperately searching for others to take on these debts, and throughout the crisis unfortunately governments have been all too willing to take over the liabilities of banks and other financial institutions. They should not have done that!
How do I know that debt levels are too large? An analysis by McKinsey shows that debt levels have reached a new high in 2010 at 212...
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Posted by Edgar Hertwich at Thursday, December 22, 2011
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| PC and TV purchases shape EEE carbon footprint |
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The rapid proliferation of electronic entertainment and communication equipment has eclipsed traditional household appliances like washing machines and refrigerators as the equipment with the highest residential carbon footprint; apart from heating, hot water and lighting.
The Norwegian state broadcaster sent a wonderful story on our new study: a home electronics seller is interviewed, listing the number of TVs his customers have in a household: in the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom and each of the kids rooms. He also confirms that these are replaced frequently. Our study showed that the manufacture of electronics purchased by Norwegian households causes about 350 kg of CO2 per person and year. Assuming a relatively clean Norwegian or Nordic electricity mix, this is more than is...
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Posted by Edgar Hertwich at Friday, November 04, 2011
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| Carbon Footprint 1990-2008 |
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We present now a time series of carbon footprints in the Ranking tab. Our data lets you trace the development of carbon footprints over the period 1990-2008. You need an Adope Flash player installed to see this. This data represents national CO2 emissions corrected for trade and shows that some countries that have had reductions of national emissions have nonetheless increased their carbon footprint, like the UK. You just need to click on the country and you see the time series. You can click several countries after each other to produce a comparative chart. Unfortunately, for most countries, the trend is upward, but there are a number of European nations that have succeeded to stablize and even reduce their carbon footprints over this time period, especially Germany and formerly communist...
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Posted by Edgar Hertwich at Friday, October 28, 2011
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| Emissions from consumption may offset reported carbon emission reductions in industrialized countries |
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An increasing share of global emissions is from the production of internationally traded goods and services, according to a new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Due to current reporting practices, this has allowed some countries to increase their carbon footprints while reporting stabilized emissions.
If you buy a sweater or a refrigerator, emissions from the production processes are allocated to the producing country. In the consuming country these emissions remain invisible. In this way, some countries can increase their consumption (carbon footprint) while their officially reported emissions remain stable.
An international team of researchers has now compiled a trade-linked global database of carbon dioxide emissions running from...
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Posted by Jan Minx at Tuesday, April 26, 2011
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| The Carbon Footprint of Municipalities |
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A consumption-based account of greenhouse gas emissions reveals true climate impacts of public services.
Analysis based on the environmental impacts of consumption often focuses on household consumption. Some consumption, however, is provided by public authorities and paid for through taxes, not prices. Education, health care, elderly care, street cleaning and - important for Norway! - snow plowing are examples for that. What are the environmental impacts of these activities. In a series of papers, my PhD student Hogne Nersund Larsen takes up the issue and illustrates the usefulness of a carbon footprint account for municipalities. In Identifying important characteristics of municipal carbon footprints, we present a calculation of the carbon footprint of public services provided by all...
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Posted by Edgar Hertwich at Monday, December 13, 2010
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| Recognition for the Carbon Footprint |
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NATURE recently recognized the work presented in this web page, and more specifically the Carbon Footprint of Nations paper. In the category 'Community choice - the most viewed papers in science', the paper was reviewed under the title Where greenhouse gases start. At the same time, we got word that the Resource Panel Report Priority Products and Materials - which triggered the work presented here - has been downloaded over half a million times from the UNEP webservers since its launch in June. Not at all bad!
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Posted by Edgar Hertwich at Monday, December 13, 2010
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| Contributing to the IPCC |
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I have the great honor to be selected to serve on the IPCC as lead author of the fifth assessment report. It has always been my desire to contribute to addressing environmental problems. Climate Science is fascinating – the ways scientists have found to tease out evidence about past climate are amazing. It is scary to see how the various pieces of the puzzle – not all of them yet found or correctly placed – provide an increasingly complete and compelling picture that – in rich and unforeseen detail –confirms the basic physics laid out by the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius 110 years ago.
My task is to contribute to the volume on Climate Change Mitigation – how to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases as to limit climate change to a not-too-disruptiv...
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Posted by Edgar Hertwich at Friday, July 30, 2010
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| UN Resource Panel highlights food and fossil fuel as global problems |
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It was my big day in Brussels: The deputy director of the United Nations Environment Programme, Angela Kropper, and the EU's Commissioner for the Environment, Janez Potocnik, were there for the launch of our report, The Environmental Impact of Production and Consumption: Priority Products and Materials. It was the request for the report that prompted me to work on the Carbon Footprint of Nations. The report was written by a working group of the Resource Panel and published by UNEP. The evening before we spent on our mobile phones, giving interviews to Reuters, the Guardian and other news outlets.
The story, as we framed it, was of a top-down assessment to identify the most important causes of environmental problems - the most important consumption categories, materials and industry sec...
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Posted by Edgar Hertwich at Wednesday, June 30, 2010
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