About Carbon Neutrality
I have been talking about $CBC and CNES, and I also want to talk about carbon neutrality itself.
If you find it helpful, please forward it so that more people can understand carbon neutrality and make a little contribution to our planet.
More and more companies are participating in carbon neutrality and are beginning to notice the reduction of carbon dioxide. Companies need to get their emissions down fast, but getting to absolute zero is hard. Some companies are committed to reducing their emissions and use carbon offset credits to lower their effective emissions by investing in projects around the world that reduce emissions elsewhere or that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
These projects include wind or solar farms, planting and growing new forests, or protecting existing forests. But some companies could be investing in the very cheapest available credits, with little regard to their credibility, simply to launder their reputations as “green”.
There are a few key ways to move to net-zero emissions, which are reflected in most national plans:
drastically reduce or eliminate the use of fossil fuels in the energy sector (including transport)
improve efficiency and/or develop new technology in other sectors generating emissions but unable to easily reduce them, such as manufacturing and agriculture
invest in bio-sequestration (also known as reforestation or tree-planting) and carbon-negative technologies to offset any continuing or unavoidable emissions.
No technology or quantity of trees planted could offset the emissions currently generated globally. That’s why nearly every net-zero plan includes first reducing and eventually replacing, fossil fuels. Fossil fuels could be used to achieve net-zero with offsets or carbon capture and storage, but in many cases, this is not actually the most cost-effective or practical pathway to net-zero.
Most national plans achieve this through land management techniques such as reforestation. However, the amount of CO₂ offset through natural carbon-negative solutions can be difficult to measure. Additionally, the long-term delivery of the carbon offsets cannot always be guaranteed — for example, a replanted forest may die or be burnt in a bushfire releasing CO₂ back to the atmosphere.
It’s not just countries that can produce net-zero emissions. The term can also apply to a state, city, company, or even a single building.
Under a net-zero scenario, emissions are still being generated but they’re offset by the same amount elsewhere. Examples of offset activities include planting trees to absorb CO₂ or using other natural ecosystems to increase carbon stored in the biosphere. The term “carbon-neutral” is sometimes used instead of net-zero, and they broadly mean the same thing.
When it comes to achieving carbon neutrality as an individual, it can be a little tricky. Most people don’t have the time, resources, or money to ensure they are removing the same amount of carbon into the atmosphere as they are polluting, but that doesn’t mean you’re helpless.
Finally, I have to talk about CNES again (instead of $CBC). What CNES can and must do is to solve the problem of individual participation in carbon neutrality. Whether it’s through NFT planting, walking, or even other interesting ways that we haven’t announced yet, I believe that we can let everyone on the planet participate in carbon neutrality, for the planet we live on.
CoMe
