Comments on: Can we cut by 40% our GHG emissions by 2020 ?

By: Edouard

Edouard — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:35:50 +0000

I agree heartily with you Kiashu.

The sum of all the efforts we can do could easily account for 40 % reduction by 2020.

Here we cut our energy consumption as well by choosing energy efficient solutions and so on.

I am optimistic we will make it. It won’t be easy, but well, life ain’t easy, right ?

By: Can we cut by 40% our GHG emissions by 2020 ? | Oil And Gas Jobs

Can we cut by 40% our GHG emissions by 2020 ? | Oil And Gas Jobs — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 06:26:58 +0000

[...] more: Can we cut by 40% our GHG emissions by 2020 ? Social [...]

By: Topics about Jobs » Archive » Can we cut by 40% our GHG emissions by 2020 ?

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 01:22:27 +0000

[...] Sustainable development and much more placed an interesting blog post on Can we cut by 40% our GHG emissions by 2020 ?Here’s a brief overviewWhen the IPCC published its various reports in 2007 it concluded that to avoid dramatic climate changes, cutting by as far as 40 percent greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions could be necessary. This contrast heavily with the targets the United States and the European Union set as they are closer to 20 than to 40 percent. Nonetheless we will see that the latter goal is achievable. Energy efficiency alone could bring large cuts as it would enable to decrease importantly the consumption of coal [...]

By: Kiashu

Kiashu — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:16:14 +0000

Any one of us can cut our household emissions overnight with some simple changes which, far from costing money, overall save money. However, these changes require that certain infrastructure be available, like railways; usually in the West these are available, but not enough for everyone to use. So that anyone can halve emissions overnight, but not everyone. Every one of us can make those changes if there's some more spending on infrastructure. This can just be diverted spending; instead of $55 million/km highways, we can have $13 million/km railways. So the net cost should be around zero, or a slight saving of money. The necessary infrastructure could be built within a decade. Since household emissions are around half of all emissions, this halving leads to an overall 25% reduction within a decade. This leaves 15% reduction to be found by 2020. Agriculture, commerce and industry would then have to do their part. For the other 50% of emissions, they'd have to find 15/50 = 30% reduction by 2020. Could they manage it? Well, we see that unoccupied offices are lit up all night. Switching them off will save a lot of energy. And if you look around, you find tales of factories halving emissions in some area, for example, or another, and so on. So I think it quite doable. We should at least try. I don't think it requires vast spending and wonderful new technology. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Here in the West we're quite keen on the "recycle" part, because all we have to do is put the stuff in a bin and someone else takes it away and deals with it. We need more focus on "reuse", and more still on "reduce". It's not really very complicated. In my household we've reduced our energy and water use by 75%, and I'm no technical genius, I'm just a cook. We just need to get our shit together. At the moment we're very messy and wasteful.