Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 1.3 Energy-related
CO 2 emissions by coun-
try, 1990-2012 (copyright
OECD/IEA. Figure 1.11 in
OECD/IEA 2013 )
overall emissions have grown from 248.7 Mt CO 2 in 1971 to 929.7 Mt in 2010.
Emissions have doubled since 1984. Asia's growth rate has been even faster, in-
creasing from 434.1 Mt in 1971 to 3,330.6 Mt in 2010, having doubled since just
1995 (IEA 2012 ).
In addition, other major sources of GHG emissions due to land use change are
extensive in Asia—particularly the replacement of natural forests in Malaysia and
Indonesia to produce Palm Oil. In particular, Indonesia is the world's third largest
emitter of CO 2 (accounting for 4.5 % of global emissions) of which approaching
80 % originate from deforestation and land use changes which cause peat-lands to
dry and burn (UNFCC 2012 ).
The critical importance of national policies in determining the future path of
global warming can be shown in trends in the two largest emitters- USA and China.
US emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels fell by 200 Mt in 2012 due in
part to a transition from coal power to natural gas, but also due to active national
and state-level policies to encourage renewable energy—especially wind and solar.
European emissions have also been reduced as a result of strong renewable energy
policies. China has also started to implement specific policies to reduce the rate of
growth in GHG emissions through energy efficiency and renewable energy initia-
tives and, as a result, growth in emissions (300 Mt in 2012) was one of the smallest
annual increases in recent years; mainly because China has achieved a substantial
drop in emissions per unit of electricity (Fig. 1.4 ). Future options include for China
to price its carbon emissions, adding an additional economic incentive to switch
from high-carbon sources—particularly coal power use.
Such modest progress underlines the importance of providing human resources
to staff the switch in priorities from just economic and technological development,
to sustainable development which can reverse the serious environmental side-ef-
fects of current paths. At present, global emissions of CO 2 are closest to Scenario
A2 in the 2007 IPCC report (IPCC 2007 ), which is associated with an average
global temperature rise of 3.6-5.3 . This is well above the international consensus
of a 'safe' maximum warming of 2 . Limiting planetary warming to 2 requires
much more substantial and urgent measures in all countries. Strong environmental
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