The big sources of CO2 emissions: electricity generation (±30%); land transport (±20%), agriculture & land clearing(±25%, but agriculture much worse than that because of methane); iron and steel (±7%); cement (±8%). These are global totals; your country's might differ. Canada, e.g., has plenty of hydro.
So, to reduce your personal emissions by at least 50%:
- Become vegetarian
- Buy your electricity from a genuine green supplier, not one that uses offsets to 'reduce' their emissions, which are mostly (alas) scams
- Replace your car with an EV, but if that's too expensive, a simple old hybrid still reduces emissions (urban driving) by 40-50% and costs only $2 K more than a petrol car
- Put solar panels on your roof if you can
- Use trains instead of planes to travel long distance
and ...
Vote for a party with a real emissions policy, as opposed to parties which are just greenwashing, which will :
- Push steel companies to produce steel using green hydrogen/methane.
- Subsidise EVs and electric buses/trains
- Eliminate fossil fuel subsidies
- Introduce a price on carbon
- Tax imports from countries which don't cut emissions.
The only emissions which will be very hard to reduce will be from cement. But there are ways around that too.
 |
| Source: BBC Note that only the CO2 emissions saved by a vegan diet in this chart are given. Methane (a greenhouse gas 80 times as potent as CO2) is excluded. |
No comments:
Post a Comment