Climate action

Climate action describes various efforts to prevent what is considered dangerous climate change.

See also: Politics of global warming

Agriculture

See also: Climate change and agriculture

According to the EPA, agricultural soil management practices can lead to production and emission of nitrous oxide (N2O), a major greenhouse gas and air pollutant. Activities that can contribute to N2O emissions include fertilizer usage, irrigation and tillage. The management of soils accounts for over half of the emissions from the Agriculture sector. Cattle livestocks account for one third of emissions, through methane emissions. Manure management and rice cultivation also emit emissions.^[1]

Methods that significantly enhance carbon sequestration in soil include no-till farming, residue mulching, cover cropping, and crop rotation, all of which are more widely used in organic farming than in conventional farming.^[2][3] Because only 5% of US farmland currently uses no-till and residue mulching, there is a large potential for carbon sequestration.^[4]

A 2015 study found that farming can deplete soil carbon and render soil incapable of supporting life. Instead the study showed that conservation farming can protect carbon in soils, and repair damage over time.^[5]

The farming practise of cover crops has been recognized as climate-smart agriculture by the White House.^[6]

Carbon sinks

See also: Carbon sink § Enhancing natural sequestration

Carbon sinks can sequester carbon naturally or artificially. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation has the objective of mitigating climate change through reducing net emissions of greenhouse gases through enhanced forest management in developing countries.

Divestment

See also: Fossil-fuel phase-out

Fossil fuel divestment describes actions to withdraw investment assets including stocks, bonds, and investment funds from companies involved in extracting fossil fuels, in an attempt to reduce climate change emissions.^[7]

Financial experts, such as the Bank of England or Goldman Sachs, project that expensive fossil fuel projects will become worthless due to future climate actions.^[8] According to research, to limit the climate change to a 2°C target many fossil fuels have to be left in the ground.^[9]

Energy

See also: Energy subsidies

See also: Efficient energy use

Renewable energy generation has increased in recent years, i.e. with solar power, or wind power. For instance financial incentives for photovoltaics can encourage faster adoption.

Global agreements

• Effective since 2005 is the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty, which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits State Parties to reduce greenhouse gases emissions.^[10]
• The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference resulted in a global agreement for the goal of limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (°C) compared to pre-industrial levels.^[11] Nations will also “pursue efforts to” limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C.^[12]

Negative emissions

See also: Carbon dioxide removal

Bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is a greenhouse gas mitigation technology which produces negative carbon dioxide emissions by combining bioenergy (energy from biomass) use with geologic carbon capture and storage.^[13] The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report noted, “Net negative emissions can be achieved when more GHGs are sequestered than are released into the atmosphere (e.g., by using bio-energy in combination with carbon dioxide capture and storage).”^[14]

Planning

See also: European Climate Change Programme

A Climate Action Plan (CAP) is a set of strategies or a framework intended to guide efforts for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.^[15]

Taxation

Climate actions can include the adoption of a carbon tax, as an incentive to reduce carbon emissions, and to adopt alternatives.^[16]

Transportation

See also: Electric car use by country

See also: Electric vehicle conversion

See also: Government incentives for plug-in electric vehicles

The carbon footprint and other emissions of electric vehicles varies depending on the fuel and technology used for electricity generation.

Many fossil fuel driven vehicles can be converted to use electricity, the U.S. has a estimated capacity of supporting 73% light duty vehicles (LDV). In terms of transportation, the net result would be a 27% total reduction in emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, a 31% total reduction in nitrogen oxides, a slight reduction in nitrous oxide emissions, an increase in particulate matteremissions, the same sulfur dioxide emissions, and the near elimination of carbon monoxide and volatile organic compound emissions (a 98% decrease in carbon monoxide and a 93% decrease in volatile organic compounds). The emissions would be displaced away from street level, where they have “high human-health implications.”^[17]

See also

• Individual and political action on climate change
• Adaptation to global warming
• Climate change mitigation
• Climate resilience

References

1.  “Agriculture: Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions”. EPA. 2015.
2. Susan S. Lang (13 July 2005). “Organic farming produces same corn and soybean yields as conventional farms, but consumes less energy and no pesticides, study finds”. Retrieved 8 July 2008.
3. Pimentel, David; Hepperly, Paul; Hanson, James; Douds, David; Seidel, Rita (2005). “Environmental, Energetic, and Economic Comparisons of Organic and Conventional Farming Systems”. BioScience 55 (7): 573–82. doi:10.1641/0006-3568(2005)055[0573:EEAECO]2.0.CO;2.
4. Lal, Rattan; Griffin, Michael; Apt, Jay; Lave, Lester; Morgan, M. Granger (2004). “Ecology: Managing Soil Carbon”. Science 304 (5669): 393. doi:10.1126/science.1093079. PMID 15087532.
5. A. N. (Thanos) Papanicolaou, Kenneth M. Wacha, Benjamin K. Abban, Christopher G. Wilson, Jerry L. Hatfield, Charles O. Stanier, Timothy R. Filley (2015). “Conservation Farming Shown to Protect Carbon in Soil”. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences.doi:10.1002/2015JG00307810.1002/2015JG003078.
6. “Cover Crops, a Farming Revolution With Deep Roots in the Past”. The New York Times. 2016.
7. “Fossil fuel divestment: a brief history”. http://www.theguardian.com/. The Guardian. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
8. “Leave fossil fuels buried to prevent climate change, study urges”. The Guardian. 2015.
9. Christophe McGlade & Paul Ekins (2015). “The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2 °C”.Nature. doi:10.1038/nature14016.
10. Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: Annex B”. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. n.d. Retrieved 8 October 2011.
11. “Adoption of the Paris agreement—Proposal by the President—Draft decision -/CP.21” (PDF). UNFCCC. 2015-12-12. Archived from the original on 2015-12-12. Retrieved 2015-12-12.
12. Sutter, John D.; Berlinger, Joshua (12 December 2015). “Final draft of climate deal formally accepted in Paris”. CNN. Cable News Network, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
13. Obersteiner, M. (2001). “Managing Climate Risk”. Science 294 (5543): 786–7. doi:10.1126/science.294.5543.786b. PMID 11681318.
14. “Two degree climate target not possible without ‘negative emissions’, scientists warn”. CarbonBrief. 2015.
15. “Climate Action Planning” (PDF). NREL. Retrieved January 23, 2016.
16. Gupta, S.; et al. (2007). “13.2.1.2 Taxes and charges”. Policies, instruments, and co-operative arrangements. Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (B. Metzet al. Eds.). Print version: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., and New York, N.Y., U.S.A.. This version: IPCC website. Retrieved 2010-03-18.
17. “Impacts assessment of plug-in hybrid vehicles on electric utilities and regional u.s. power grids” (PDF). Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. 2010.

External links

• Arnold Schwarzenegger addresses delegates at the 2015 climate conference