Reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, particularly from industrial production, to combat global climate change is one of the biggest sustainable development challenge for the international community. Countries are adopting Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs), low carbon development strategies and climate change policies to tackle issues of climate change and at the same time meet their development goals. At the global level, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Kyoto Protocol, have paved ways for voluntary GHG emission reduction targets. To facilitate the mitigation actions, carbon intensities of production process are tracked and GHG inventories are developed. Such accounting of GHGs is a common practice in developed countries and is increasingly being adopted in developing countries as well. However, need for an internationally acceptable standardized and comparable GHG accounting and reporting was felt necessary that lead to the establishment of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol), which has developed protocols, standards and guidelines for the objective.
What is the GHG Protocol?
The GHG Protocol is the most widely used and international accepted accounting tool or methodology to quantify, and manage GHG emissions. It serves as the foundation for nearly every GHG standard and program in the world - from the International Standards Organization (ISO) to The Climate Registry - as well as hundreds of GHG inventories prepared by individual companies. The GHG Protocol also offers developing countries an internationally accepted management tool to help their businesses to compete in the global marketplace and their governments to make informed decisions about climate chang...
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More information about GHG Protocol Initiative can be accessed from http://www.ghgprotocol.org/
Works Cited
CDP. 2011. CDP India 200 Report 2011: Accelerating Low Carbon Growth. London: Carbon Disclosure Project. Also available at: https://www.cdproject.net/CDPResults/CDP-2011-India-200-Report.pdf accessed on 27 March 2012.
CorporateRegister.com Ltd.. 2007. The Corporate Climate Communications Report 2007. London: CorporateRegister.com Ltd. Also available at http://www.corporateregister.com/pdf/CCCReport_07.pdf accessed on 27 March 2012.
WRI and WBCSD. 2007. Measuring to Manage: A Guide to Designing GHG Accounting and Reporting Programs. Washington, DC and Geneva: World Resources Institute and World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Also available at: http://www.wri.org/publication/measuring-to-manage accessed on 26 March 2012.
[11]Reviewing Existing And Proposed Emissions Trading Systems. (2010, Nov). Retrieved May 18, 2014, from International Energy Agency: http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/ets_paper2010.pdf
Before promoting those best practices to the construction companies in Waterloo, proper guidance of GHG emissions calculation should be provided firstly in order to help them calculate their GHG emissions and determine their problems. Considering this issue, some protocols can be used, which include inventory, toolsets and guidance for GHG emissions calculation (Matthews, Hendrickson & Weber, 2008).
Climate change has been a major topic of debate in the UK over the recent years. The need to reduce the impact of CO2 and other Green House Gases (GHG) on the environment has pushed the UK Government to enact legislations (e.g. Climate Change Act 2008) and impose strict regulations on businesses to reduce emissions. These actions have forced businesses across a wide range of industrial sectors to rethink and rework their strategies of utilising energy, transport and land in an efficient manner, which in turn has lead to innovative and at the same time simple yet effective methods to reduce carbon emissions.
The Kyoto Protocol set by the United Nations allocates countries to offset their greenhouse gas emissions by growing what they lost, that is reforestation, and/or establishing a forest in a barren land, that is afforestation. Each country is allowed a certain quota that limits their greenhouse emissions. For companies that uses deforestation for commercial purposes must reforest the land they cut off to compensate for the loss. More often than not the land is left alo...
It is known that as an international society every individual needs to contribute to do their part to reduce their carbon footprint on the world. Individual people, farmers, business, and industries must to do their part to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in their daily routines to conserve our world for future generations to come.
According to the protocol, overall global reduction must be at least five per cent in 1990 levels of greenhouse gases by 2008-2012. However, the Kyoto Protocol is not a simple document because both of the commitments and the mechanisms on how the developed country Parties can achieve the target are extremely complex. Although all countries recognized the need to cut global emissions of greenhouse gases, but since many developed countries are depend on the fossil fuel industry for their economy, they refused to agree with the limitation of their domestic greenhouse gas emission. This resulting the failure of the Protocol in protecting the earth from climate change, which is supposed to be the reason of its
Ratnatunga, J., Balach & Ran, K. (2009). Carbon business accounting: the impact of global warming on the cost and management accounting profession. Journal of Accounting, Auditing & Finance, 24 (2), 333--355.
Young, Barbara. “Global Warming: An Issue Facing the Industry.” National Provisioner, vol. 222, no. 10, 2008, pp. 8. MasterFILE Premier, http://ez2.maricopa.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=34706229&site=ehost-live. Accessed 24 September 2016.
Under the Kyoto Protocol countries are allocated carbon credit to emit specific quantities of greenhouse gases based on previous emission levels. The nations they divide the credits among their emitters and industries with deficits can buy the surplus credits to ensure they meet their emission requirements. Through demand and supply of credit, a monetary value for carbon pollution is established. This cost will, in principal, motivate polluters to develop technologies and modify practices to limit carbon emission. However, many critics of the of policy believe it ineffective and state “nothing less than a reorganisation of society and technology that will leave most remaining fossil fuels safely underground.” [Lohmann, 2006] The industries which are most reliant on fossil fuels and are the largest contributors to global warming will require the most expensive long-term structural changes, and therefore are le...
The Kyoto Protocol is one of the most ambitious international environmental agreements to date. Adopted on 11 December 1997 by negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the treaty’s aim was to commit countries to a 5% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their 1990 levels (Prins and Rayner, 2008). These commitments in GHG reduction, CO2 emissions in particular, were to begin in 2005 with goals expected to be reached by 2012. A total of 191 parties ratified the protocol, with 38 industrialized nations and the European Community with binding commitments to reducing their emissions, while developing countries, including India and China remained exempt. United States did not ratify the protocol, while Canada renounced its commitments in 2011. In order to monitor the CO2 flux of each country, actual emissions
Voluntary carbon markets apply to everybody that are not subject to mandatory limits, such as individuals, companies, and other entities, whom wishes to offset their emissions by buying CER’s. They are used for various applications such as neutralizing their carbon footprints. There is no specific emission allocation, but carbon footprints are used as the baseline from which emission reduction targets are set. This type of market is referred to a ‘buyer beware market’, because credits undergo less rigorous verification methods. Overall, the carbon market grew to $126 billion in 2008 from the $63 billion in...
A carbon footprint, also known as greenhouse gases, is the measure of gases that trap heat in the atmosphere. These gases are released as a result of our daily activities such as: heating and cooling your house, commuting to and from work, and using low efficiency appliances. The gases, carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) can be measured on a wide scale, from determining the carbon footprint of a nation or just the footprint of a single household. Measuring these gases helps determine the...
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...
"What Countries Have the Biggest Carbon Footprint?" Educational Articles and Tips from Postconsumers. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2014.
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.