Carbon footprinting

A presentation by Peter Mumford, 15/04/2015

Aims

• To introduce or reinforce knowledge about carbon footprinting

• To help people make more informed decisions about carbon. Including...

• To help people distinguish between carbon footprints and toeprints!

This presentation

• Part 1: Introduction to carbon footprinting• Part 2: Some numbers!• Part 3: Analysis• Questions at the end of each part

Part 1: Introduction to carbon footprinting

Carbon footprinting – what is it?

• A rapidly developing science/consultancy topic• Aim is to quantify the total contribution to the

greenhouse effect of a product, service etc• Its main metric is CO2e• CO2e is directly related to the greenhouse effect• All direct and indirect contributions considered,

including manufacture, operation, decomissioning.• By its nature, this is an approximate science –

however, produces answers to a great enough accuracy to be useful

What is CO2e?

• CO2e stands for Equivalent Carbon Dioxide• There are many greenhouse gases of varying

greenhouse effect potencies, including:• CO2• Methane• Nitrous Oxide

• CO2e is a way of expressing any combination of these as an amount of CO2 which would produce an equivalent magnitude of greenhouse effect

• Enables quantification and comparison of ‘carbon footprints’

Some basic CO2e quantities

What do I release if I burn (at sea level)....

1 pint of petrol

1kg CO2e

=

1 chick pea’s volume of petrol

1g CO2e

=

500 litres of petrol

1 tonne CO2e

=

Some basic CO2e quantities

1 paperback book

1kg CO2e

=

7 pints cold tap water

1g CO2e

=

Flying London to Athens and back

again (per passenger)

1 tonne CO2e

=

How much CO2e does the average Brit consume?

Remember, the ONLY relevant metric in terms of climate change is cumulative emissions (i.e. the accumulation of all of the little bits of emissions into the one atmosphere)

Answer: approximately 14 tonnes CO2e/annum

Questions (part 1)

Part 2: some numbers!

Electricity

Electricity: 1 kiloWatt hour (kWh)

Onshore wind: 12g

Gas: 460g

Most other renewables <50g

Coal: 1000g

Nuclear fission: ~20g Gas with Carbon

Capture & Storage: 70-240g?

0g 1000g250g 750g500gCO2e

Coal with Carbon Capture & Storage: 100-400g?

UK grid electricity

• Nuclear is never switched off or turned down (takes weeks!).• “Wind energy, with very low running costs, is generally used whenever it is

available” (IME report, 2014)• Gas & coal are used to fill in the rest• Therefore, every unit of electricity you save is a fossil-fuel-generated unit!

Awesome.

Transport

Transport: Travelling 1 mile

Cereal-powered: 90g

Bacon-powered: 200g

Well-used city bus: 150g

Typical train/tube: 150g

Small car @ 60mph: 350g

Average car: 700g

Landrover discovery @ 90mph: 2200g

Aircraft: 400g

Charged with average UK grid: 260g

Charged with renewables / nuclear: 130g

Electric car

Approx 1/3 of CO2e is embedded (manufacture)

1000g0g 250g 750g500gCO2e

CO2e in the office

CO2e in the office

1 email (no attachment): 4g

1 email (big attachment): 50g

Laptop + 2 monitors for 1 workday: 500g (1kWh)

0g 250g 750g500g 1000g

One hour TV: 70g

Leaving projector on overnight: >1500g

CO2e

1kg Portland Cement: 1000g

1kg Steel: 420-6150g

Food & Drink

Food & Drink

Strawberries:150g punnet in season1800g punnet out-of-season

Beer:300g local brew from pub500g pint of lager900g bottle of beer from the shop

Bowl of porridge:80g (water only)300g (half milk)550g (all milk)

CO2e0g 250g 750g500g 1000g

1 can Coke or 1 bottle water: 170g

1 glass bottle Coke: 360g

In general:• Local in-season fruit & veg good• Cereals/wheat/oats good• Chickens, pigs, rice, dairy not as good• Sheep, cows (ruminants), out-of-season soft fruit etc worst!

Tea & Coffee

CO2e0g 250g 750g500g 1000g

Tea with milk: 60g

Large cappuccino: 230g

Herbal/black tea: 25g

Large latte: 340g

Soya milk better? Yes if does not contribute to deforestation (check first!)

The milk in a cup of tea is higher-carbon than heating the water!

Black coffee: 25g

Questions (part 2)

Part 3: Analysis

Personal carbon consumption

NB I don’t own a car but useful to show relative contribution (3 tonnes)

Categories of influence on emissions

• Direct: Ways that you can, on the day, directly reduce emissions (e.g. use less electricity, don’t take the car)

• Indirect: Ways that you can, by reducing demand, reduce emissions (e.g. not fly/get the bus). Also ‘pester power’

• Strategic/political: emissions that largely only e.g. governments have significant influence over (e.g. industry, electrifying transport (?), decarbonising electricity grid (?))

Personal carbon consumption: by influence

Direct influence

Indirect influence

Strategic

TOTAL (not just electricity) energy consumption UK

Transport

Heating In all low-carbon plans, as much of these are electrified as possible (with low-carbon electricity)

Which slices can be decarbonised?

Influenced by UK grid carbon intensity

Not influenced by UK grid carbon intensity

Blue wedges can be theoretically ‘decarbonised’; brown wedges cannot...?

Climate Change: The messy desk analogy

CO2e

• You can’t ‘clean your desk’ like other pollution• Emissions accumulate in the atmosphere year-on-

year• Cumulative emissions are the only relevant metric

in climate change.

and finally...climate change

• IPCC emissions scenarios• IPCC reports on four emission scenarios• Lowest (RCP2.6) is the only one in which we stay under 2 degrees• Highest is unabated emissions (RCP8.5, leading to >4 degrees) ,

with two intermediate scenarios

Emissions are tracking above IPCC worst-case

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v3/n1/full/nclimate1783.html?WT.ec_id=NCLIMATE-201301

• Emissions are currently tracking ABOVE the worst-case scenario modelled by the IPCC

Emissions per person by country

NB Note figures are in CO2. Figures in CO2e would be higher

This slide shows the background to developing countries being allocated a greater proportion of the emissions budget going forwards.

What is required of Annex 1 (rich) countries?

• Context: Copenhagen Accord• Considering that developing countries’

emissions will peak later than rich countries:• To have 67% chance of staying under 2

degrees in line with Copenhagen Accord (Tyndall Centre research), Annex 1 countries need to achieve:

• 10% decreases in CO2e emissions year-on-year (UK achieved 2% last year)• Total decarbonisation of energy sector (i.e. nuclear and

renewables only) by 2035/2040

Part 3: Questions (& the end!)

Additional slides

What can we do?

• Every little helps??

1W

0.5W

So, turning off your monitor every working day of one year......saves 2kg CO2e!

...the same as driving an average car 3 miles......or flying 5 miles...

What can we do?

• Every little helps??

1W

0.5W

So, 300 years of doing this every working day...

...equals one economy return flight to Lisbon (600kg CO2e)

Message: every BIG helps!Focus on the big things the most.Pick your battles!!

What can we do?

• ...but sometimes standby is an issue!

100W in standby!

...and up to 1000W in operation...

You can save 600g CO2e for every night you switch one of these off.

What should we do?

• Someone else’s problem?• From a new Scottish road scheme’s website:

• “Carbon dioxide is considered...and an increase is anticipated...Off-setting will be required by greater reductions elsewhere in the country...”

In reality it is everyone’s problem: the cumulative emissions which are the problem are mostly made up of all the little bits of emissions from the relatively wealthy i.e. us.