The demands of a changing climate are starting to affect how many businesses operate, from attempting to tamp down their carbon emissions and ramp up energy efficiency, to adjusting to new risks caused by violent weather.
We can fight climate change by reducing our carbon footprint.
Decreasing the energy intensity of economic activity is a starting point to fighting climate change.
Reduce emissions
energy saving
Reduce, reuse, recycle
Eat-low carbon
Afforestation
Gov. support
Two companies with an identical carbon footprint today can have completely different strategies for managing emissions in the future. While the carbon footprint helps investors understand a portfolio’s exposure to climate risk, it is a static measurement that looks backward, not forward.
A company may face significant shifts in its business opportunities and risks irrespective of its current carbon footprint.
It will be important to take a forward-looking view of a company’s potential response to environmental concerns by looking at indicators such as:
• Three-year greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trend • Environmental targets such as GHG reduction and energy efficiency metrics • Programs and initiatives to reach targeted goals • Alignment of environmental reporting to the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework
I believe that the oil and gas industry or other energy fossil industries can provide solutions to address the challenges posed by climate change. Some companies have been shifting toward cleaner energy for some time; a number have invested in renewable energy and electric vehicle charging points, while others have focused on developing cleaner fuels. To achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, these efforts will need to be complemented by technologies such as forest management and carbon capture and storage (CCS), a technology that could lead to a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency.
Use less coal; Burning coal, oil and gas produces carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide.
Plant more trees: Cutting down forests (deforestation). Trees help to regulate the climate by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere.
Increasing livestock farming. Cows and sheep produce large amounts of methane when they digest their food.
Fertilisers containing nitrogen produce nitrous oxide emissions.
https://ec.europa.eu/clima/change/causes_en
It is indeed a fight, because the people are divided as far as the cause of climate change. Although the reason is clear, those working in the oil industry are trying to preserve their jobs by building more pipelines in North America!
Canada is split in half and no one knows which way the country is going to go.
Thierry De Mees
are you arguing that CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas, or that the interaction of CO2 in the bio/atmospheres is too complex to model properly? If the former, then you're either a genius and 99% of scientists are wrong, or you're on the wrong side of agreed upon science. If the latter, it seems extremely risky to hope that a greenhouse gas that alters the radiative balance of the planet somehow doesn't kick-off a fairly extreme disruption to our planets climate over the long-run, especially given the cost-benefit of low-carbon sources up to a fairly high penetration rate.
I appreciate the thorough answer. I will review these papers when I get a chance. I hope you are right, it would be easier to use oil/gas for longer as we phase into a mix of solar/wind/nuclear or whatever else is affordable and robust. Still, it would be a pretty big conspiracy for the IPCC, and what appears to be most governments at this point, to be going down a transitional path based on falsifiable science. If the science is clear, why is there not a broader pushback?
I quick search shows that Nature, perhaps the most respected journal, published a paper in 2015 showing that 3/4 of observed climate change is human-induced. https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2896
Either science is totally broken (i.e. the general public can no longer trust anything any of you say and we can just send papers back and forth to each other), CO2 isn't the factor but other human activities are (e.g. deforestation), or you're wrong. Thoughts?
Decarbonizing to net zero emissions by 2050 across the economy, managing regulatory changes, adopting rapid technology innovation, and adapting to shifting demand for products
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