Australia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions have historically been steadily increasing. However, in recent years this trend has stopped - the emissions rate has steadied. The Australian nation has been emitting in the range of 250,000 to 450,000 thousand metric tons greenhouse gases per year from 1990 to 2010.
Data from 2008 to 2012 show the carbon dioxide emissions as a fraction of the total greenhouse gas.
This goes beyond the limit agreed in the Kyoto Protocol, and hence appropriate measures need to be taken. Several possible solutions present itself in this scenario:
• Carbon Taxes
• Buy the necessary amount of carbon credits
• Make mining process more efficient
• Reduce coal mining overall
• Alternative sources
Carbon tax is what many people call the government’s policy of pricing carbon. The idea is that polluters will pay per tonne of carbon they release into the atmosphere. This cost was initially set at $23, and will increase until 2015. In 2015, there will be a shift to a trading scheme that will let the market set the cost. This idea is widely popular, and is thought of as the most effective and least costly mechanism to reduce carbon output and reduce the level of climate change that is occurring. The way carbon taxes can affect pollution directly is that it takes into account which mines and power stations emanate the worst pollution. For example, normally power coming from a dirty power station which emits a large amount of pollution will be considered to be equal to a clean power station which is able to produce as much energy despite being smaller. The carbon tax will be variable to this such that products from dirtier sources that cause more pollution will be more expensive than the cleaner ones. This is...
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...asification Combined Cycle
The Fluidized Bed Combustion method can burn several sources of energy – not just coal. This method focuses on reducing sulphur oxide and nitrous oxide levels by up to 90%. The processes involved in this method are burning coal in a reactor containing a filter which lets gas passed through it to keep it in an agitated state. The better technology then uses the heat exchanger and the fluidized bed combustion system to work at cooler temperatures as opposed the standard pulverized coal combustion systems. Gas streams with increased pressures through the filter are then made to activate a turbine, which, in turn, generates electricity.
Fluidized Bed Combustion methods can be split into a couple of groups depending on whether it is pressurized or not, and a futher two groups depending on whether the fluidized filter circulates or bubbles.
The issue presented in this paper is how one can aim to reduce the amounts released, and what the best ways to solve this problem are. This has been long debated amongst scientists, businessmen, Industry-owners, and politicians amongst many other eminent figures in society. The four major approaches to reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere include: subsidies of alternative energy, cap and trade, carbon taxes, and command and control regulation. We will examine and compare the effectiveness of two of these methods: The carb...
The emission of carbon dioxide has contributed to 80% to the heating of the earth atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is produced due the burning of fossil fuels such as natural gas, coal and oil. The burning of fossil fuel is very important in our society today, because it is used for cooking, used to produce electricity, for heating, for cooling and also for transportation. The industrialization has led to the use of fossil fuel for running machines and driving cars. The building of fossil fuel contributes towards 80-90% of the carbon dioxide we find in our atmosphere today. When the ecosystems are altered and vegetation is either burned or took out, the carbon stored in them is relinquished to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (What causes global climate change, 2005). Methane is another gas being produced in the process which all have served to increase the greenhouse effect in our atmosphere. Methane is produced from the cultivation of rice, from the burning of coal and from cattle, it has increased by 145% due to human
In the atmosphere CO2 along with other GHG absorbs and hold the rays of the sun. The GHG holds the warmth of the sun rays in the air. This causes the air around the world to get warmer. In other word CO2 had its pros and cons, but too much of anything is bad. In the chart “Top Ten Carbon Dioxide-Emitting Countries, 2013” it shows that China ranks number one in countries that have high CO2 emission with 10,281,178 Kilotons of CO2. Dictionary.com defines kilotons as a unit of weight, equal to 1000 tons. The United States follows Chine with 5,297,581 Kilotons of CO2. Brazil places last with 511,982 Kilotons of CO2. For this reason global warming affects the world and has become a big
Increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes global warming which can lead to climate change (Jamieson). Australia's major problem that they are facing now is climate change (Jamieson). Climate change is an ...
First and foremost, in order to make any difference in the amount of C02 in the environment, low/no-carbon technology must be developed and implemented. This can’t be done without money however, and that is something greatly lacking for this cause. Both the government and the people have to support the fight against greenhouse gasses...
One of the most compelling and difficult environmental problems society is facing today is climate change. People do not realize how much the environment has changed for the worse in the last ten years, until they are told that the last two decades of the 20th century have been the hottest in the last 400 years, according to climate studies (Conserve Energy Future). Today the carbon dioxide levels have reached 396.81 parts per million (ppm). “Carbon dioxide (CO2) has also increased over the last 100 years-- from about 300 ppm to 370 ppm. Interestingly, the majority of these additions have occurred in the last 50 years, when temperature increases have been slowest” (geocraft). There are no known solutions yet to reverse these effects in the environment, however there are many things people can do to prevent it from increasing. By implementing a carbon tax the government can tax corporations on how much carbon they emit into the atmosphere. With the extra money from the tax, scientist can invest in alternative ways to reduce how much carbon is emitted. Reducing climate change is going to take years and so nothing is going to get fixed anytime soon, but meanwhile we can use that extra money to begin cleaning up the atmosphere. There are many ways to explain climate change, some say its due to the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, others say it is the burning of the fossils fuels, some even say it’s the greenhouse gases. All of these sayings mean the exact same thing, no matter how one says it. I believe there are more convenient ways to solve climate change; and if the government would to implement a carbon tax on companies they will then be forced to re-evaluate all the carbon they emit to the environment and red...
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/>. Cooper, Richard M. Alternatives to Kyoto: the Case for a Carbon Tax. Rep. of Harvard University. Web. The Web.
The “greenhouse effect” has been a concern for many years now. One of the major gases that contribute to this warming effect is carbon dioxide. There have been many studies on the effect carbon dioxide has on the earth’s atmosphere and weather patterns and how carbon dioxide production from burning fossil fuels, generating electricity, making concrete, cutting trees, and other processes effects the atmosphere we live in. The goal of this paper is to identify some possible contributors of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States.
The commonly debated “greenhouse effect” refers to “the global average temperature increase that has been observed over the last one hundred years or more” (Spencer). President Barack Obama addressed the issue in an effort to highlight its severity, "We have to all shoulder the responsibility for keeping the planet habitable, or we’re going to suffer the consequences – together” (Leader). The earth’s increasing atmospheric and oceanic temperatures result in climate changes due to cumulative amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. As an outcome, researchers around the globe have established that the by-product of burning fossil fuels is the main culprit of the increasing temperatures. Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have significantly increased since 1900, as shown above from a study carried out by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center.
Carbon dioxide is the largest contributor of green house gases. While carbon dioxide comes from many natural sources, it is the main greenhouse gas emitted by human activities. Carbon dioxide is released...
... Carbon Market is a form of trading that specifically targets carbon dioxide (calculated in tonnes of carbon dioxide) and is the bulk of emissions trading. Carbon trading is a common method countries use to meet their obligations from the Kyoto Protocol, which involves an attempt to reduce future climate change.
Research indicates that anthropogenic climate change is the cause of the increased global warming over the last fifty years. 57% of the carbon dioxide emitted is absorbed into the atmosphere while the rest is absorbed into the oceans. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the most central greenhouse gas that is associated with global warming (Eby, Zickfield, Montenegro, Archer, Meissner, & Weaver, 2009).
Nowadays, we can see a lot of campaigns to reduce this humans’ contribution of greenhouse gases to atmosphere. These campaign’s missions are usually about reducing the energy that we use, convincing us to use recyclable energy, stopping the deforestation... These missions are all about mitigating to climate change. Climate change mitigation is the actions to limit the significant rate of long term climate change. In other words, climate change mitigation is all of the actions about lowering the humans’ greenhouse gas contribution to atmosphere. It is now too late for humans’ to prevent the effects of climate change, but these effects can be reduced in the future with mitigation. The most popular treaty, disenchant of humanity, is Kyoto Protocol. The main goal of Kyoto Protocol is reducing the human emitted greenhouse gases, in other word, mitigation. Also in ways that underlying national differences in GHG emissions, wealth, and capacity to make th...
According to a chart made by NASA, it shows that the number of atmospheric carbon dioxide in these 650,000 years. For the past 650,000 years, the number of atmospheric carbon dioxide were lower than the carbon dioxide
Human activities add to the levels of these gasses, causing more problems. “Automobiles, heat from homes and businesses, and factories are responsible for about 80% of today's carbon dioxide emissions, 25% of methane emissions, and 20% of the nitrous oxide emissions.” (3) The increase in agriculture, deforestation, landfills, industrial production, and mining contribute a significant share of emissions also. These gases that are released into the atmosphere are tracked by emission inventories. An emission inventory counts the amount of air pollutants discharged into the atmosphere. These inventories are important in studying the affects of global warming on the Earth.