How much of CO2 emissions come from electricity, transport, or land use? What activities do our greenhouse gases comes from?
Tag: emissions
Consumption-based Emissions Inventories and Reuse
presented by Marcel Howard from Upstream
CBEI = consumption-based emissions inventory
cities should use CBEI to calculate full CO2 footprint
using CBEI –> GHG emissions are 60% higher than estimated in 70 cities analyzed
2/3 of consumption-based emissions come from the supply chain
Limits of CBEI:
- CBEI lumps consumption into categories, but frex meat has higher emissions than other types of food
- categories treat all residential consumption as equal, BUT high-income residents usually higher
Carbon impacts are lower for reusables than single-use; conversely compostable products may have higher carbon impacts than some plastics (3rd party life cycle analyses (LCAs) – see Reuse Wins report – reviews 21 LCAs from 2000 to 2021)
Sample CO2 impact scenario:
- pop of 800,000; each person uses 3 items a day per year
- with disposables, emissions would be 130,000 metric tons
- with reusables, emissions would be 9900 metric tons
Limited LCAs currently available for utensils, straws, napkins, etc.
Climate and Reuse in C40 Cities
presented by Kathrin Zeller from C40 Cities
C40 Cities = 97 cities = 700 million people
“A global network of mayors taking urgent action to confront the climate crisis and create a future where everyone can thrive.”
Next frontier for emissions reduction in these cities: consumption-based and material management
Embodied carbon refers to the greenhouse gas emissions that result from the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of building materials. Embodied carbon is a significant percentage of global emissions and requires urgent action to address it.
Please join Stacy Smedley, the Executive Director with Building Transparency, and a subject matter expert on carbon emissions associated with buildings and construction, to learn more about embodied carbon in materials, why it is important and tools to reduce the embodied carbon in building materials and infrastructure. Stacy will also touch on the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator co-sponsored by King County. She will be joined by Karen Hamilton, Environmental Purchasing Program Manager at King County, who will tell us about the commitments in the King County Strategic Climate Action Plan to reduce embodied carbon in King County Projects starting in 2022.
King Co Strategic Climate Action Plan – reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating resilient communities
Consumption and Materials Management
- circular economy
- zero waste of resources
- sustainable materials (low embodied carbon building materials & build markets for recycled content materials)
Climate Change Current State
2041-2060: do everything right > 1.6 degrees C; business as usual > 2.4 degrees C
In 2019, atmospheric CO2 concentrations higher than any point in the last 2 million years
Sources of emissions related to construction
- Building materials and construction = 11% of global CO2 emissions by sector
- Building operations = 28% by sector (“operational carbon”)
- Manufacturing = 31% of GHG from human activities (of that, cement = 19%, iron and steel = 19%)
Embodied Carbon
Building Transparency – non-profit creating embodied carbon construction calculator (EC3)
Embodied carbon = materials extraction, transportation, replacement during building life, end of life use
Embodied carbon = about half a building’s carbon footprint
Embodied carbon can’t be reduced like operational carbon can be — it’s locked in once used
Whole building lifecycle analysis – compare materials at high level before building – then use the calculator once you’ve chosen materials to get the lowest carbon
Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) = 3rd party verified enviro impact for a material or product
Nearly everything about how Americans “care” for their lawns is deadly, but these machines exist in a category of environmental hell all their own.
[The monsters] come in a deafening, surging swarm, blasting from lawn to lawn and filling the air with the stench of gasoline and death. I would call them mechanical locusts, descending upon every patch of gold in the neighborhood the way the grasshoppers of old would arrive, in numbers so great they darkened the sky, to lay bare a cornfield in minutes. But that comparison is unfair to locusts.
Grasshoppers belong here. Gasoline-powered leaf blowers are invaders, the most maddening of all the maddening, environment-destroying tools of the American lawn-care industry.
“”Some produce more than 100 decibels of low-frequency, wall-penetrating sound — or as much noise as a plane taking off — at levels that can cause tinnitus and hearing loss with long exposure,” Monica Cardoza wrote for Audubon Magazine this year.”
Vouch.
They landscaping guys who use them have ear protection (though probably not enough), I don’t.
Holy cow, not only are they the most heinous sound on Earth but also they’re horrendous gas hogs:
“A 2011 study by Edmunds found that a two-stroke gasoline-powered leaf blower spewed out more pollution than a 6,200-pound Ford F-150 SVT Raptor pickup truck. Jason Kavanagh, the engineering editor at Edmunds at the time, noted that “hydrocarbon emissions from a half-hour of yard work with the two-stroke leaf blower are about the same as a 3,900-mile drive from Texas to Alaska in a Raptor.””