Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
or protecting existing tropical forests, peatlands and other wet-
lands will be important. However, as the world's population
grows then demand for land for agriculture will rise making such
protection challenging. The ocean carbon sink might also be
managed. This could be done by fertilising the ocean to provide
more food for plankton which can then expand their populations.
This would lead to more photosynthesis and also create a more
vibrant food chain with increased deposition of dead biota, which
is rich in carbon, to the deep ocean. However, this is ethically
challenging.
As well as mitigation, adaptation is needed to deal with the
inevitable impacts of climate change that will occur before mitiga-
tion measures take effect. For example, adaptation measures include
moving people away from flood plains that are more likely to be
flooded in the future or designing better disaster management and
emergency response procedures. Investment will be needed in the
poorest countries.
Individually, some people try to take personal responsibility for
their carbon emissions by calculating their carbon footprint and
changing their lifestyles or paying for carbon offsetting schemes.
The
carbon footprint
is the amount of carbon (often expressed in
terms of the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide) that an indi-
vidual (or organisation) uses over a given time period. It is fairly
easy to work out the carbon footprint of energy use or travelling
by car or train as emissions can be calculated per person. However,
what if you purchase some clothing or food that has been produced
by industrial methods and transported long distances? It is often
more difficult to work out how much 'embedded carbon' was used
in making or transporting that product. Furthermore, it is not clear
how you would know whether or not you have already paid for
that carbon through the price you paid for the product (i.e. has the
company already paid a carbon tax for the carbon it used in making
the product and therefore passed that cost on to customers). This is
why more clarity is needed on global carbon pricing so that organi-
sations and individuals have more long-term confidence and under-
standing of the carbon payment system. Carbon offsetting involves
paying an organisation for carbon savings they have made. For
example, there are organisations who plant trees to store carbon
from the atmosphere and then seek voluntary payments from
