A Review of Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Worldwide Hake Fishing

Low-carbon production of iron and steel: Technology options, economic assessment, and policy

Health Care and Climate Change: Challenges and Pathways to Sustainable Health Care.

基于生命周期评价的上海市水稻生产碳足迹研究

With the increased interest in the ‘carbon footprint’ of global economic activities, civil society, governments and the private sector are calling into question the wisdom of transporting food products across continents instead of consuming locally produced food. While the proposition that local consumption will reduce one’s carbon footprint may seem obvious at first glance, this conclusion is not at all clear when one considers that the economic emissions intensity of food production varies widely across regions. In this paper we concentrate on the tradeoff between production and transport emissions reductions by testing the following hypothesis: Substitution of domestic for imported food will reduce the direct and indirect Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions associated with consumption. We focus on ruminant livestock since it has the highest emissions intensity across food sectors, but we also consider other food products as well, and alternately perturb the mix of domestic and imported food products by a marginal (equal) amount. We then compare the emissions associated with each of these consumption changes in order to compute a marginal emissions intensity of local food consumption, by country and product. The variations in regional ruminant emissions intensities have profound implications for the food miles debate. While shifting consumption patterns in wealthy countries from imported to domestic livestock products reduces GHG emissions associated with international trade and transport activity, we find that these transport emissions reductions are swamped by changes in global emissions due to differences in GHG emissions intensities of production. Therefore, diverting consumption to local goods only reduces global emissions when undertaken in regions with relatively low emissions intensities. For non-ruminant products, the story is more nuanced. Transport costs are more important in the case of dairy products and vegetable oils. Overall, domestic emissions intensities are the dominant part of the food miles story in about 90 % of the country/commodity cases examined here.

Mitigating Curtailment and Carbon Emissions through Load Migration between Data Centers

A comprehensive continental-scale analysis of carbon footprint of food production: Comparing continents around the world

Managing food waste is key to tackling climate change

The global food system is a major contributor to climate change with 23–42% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Thus, the transition to sustainable food systems and dietary patterns represents a big challenge and a key solution to feed a fast-growing world population while maintaining safe planet boundaries of sustainability. Organic farming is often proposed as a sustainable option, however a debate is open on its effectiveness in reducing the impact on climate when compared to conventional agriculture. Therefore, there is a need for clear indicators of climate and environmental sustainability to duly inform the food system actors and foster an effective transition towards sustainable food production and consumption. The carbon footprint (CF) is one of the most used indicators to assess the sustainability of food as it measures the contribution to climate change in terms of GHG emissions with different metrics (e.g. GHG per unit of product or per unit of land).Through a systematic analysis of the existing peer-reviewed studies allowing an unbiased comparison of product-based vs land-based CF, this study shows that organic food has on average lower impact on climate than conventional, both when the CF is assessed per ‘land unit’ (−43% GHG emissions, average) and per ‘product unit’ (−12% GHG emissions, average). However, the two CF metrics provide diverse results, even opposite in some cases, when individual conventional vs organic food types are compared: organic food results to be more sustainable than conventional in almost all cases when the ‘land unit’ CF metric is compared; conversely, conventional food results to be less impacting than organic in the 29% of cases when the ‘product unit’ CF is considered. According to these results, although the CF per unit of product is far more used and provides useful indications on the food emissions intensity, in some cases it can bring a misleading message towards unsustainability, with the paradox of making more preferable food that apparently shows lower impact per unit of product while having higher emissions per land unit. Contrariwise, the CF per unit of land better reflects the actual agricultural contribution to climate change which is driven by the land-atmosphere GHG fluxes.According to this study's results and in view of the global climate policies' targets which foster organic food production and the transition to sustainable diets, an extensive conversion of the existing global croplands into organic lands would significantly contribute to reducing total GHG emissions from the land sector.

Energy-related activities are a major contributor of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A growing body of knowledge clearly depicts the links between human activities and climate change. Over the last century the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil and other human activities has released carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and other heat-trapping GHG emissions into the atmosphere and thus increased the concentration of atmospheric CO2 emissions. The main human activities that emit CO2 emissions are (1) the combustion of fossil fuels to generate electricity, accounting for about 37% of total U.S. CO2 emissions and 31% of total U.S. GHG emissions in 2013, (2) the combustion of fossil fuels such as gasoline and diesel to transport people and goods, accounting for about 31% of total U.S. CO2 emissions and 26% of total U.S. GHG emissions in 2013, and (3) industrial processes such as the production and consumption of minerals and chemicals, accounting for about 15% of total U.S. CO2 emissions and 12% of total ...

A comparative study on carbon footprints between plant- and animal-based foods in China

Food processing is a major thriving industry globally and provides livelihood to millions of workers. Food processing is an energy intensive process and often has an impact on the environment which remains undiagnosed and hence not quantified. Food processing industry comprises the organized as well as unorganized sector with varying levels of energy requirement and therefore the carbon foot prints also significantly vary. Higher energy use is often related to higher greenhouse gas (GHG) emission which is responsible for global warming and climate change. Carbon footprint (CFP) of food industry is an estimate of the energy use and GHG emissions caused due to the processing and delivery of food items to the consumer and also disposal of packaging. Recently there is a growing interest in estimating the carbon footprint of food industries to know how improved technologies can be used to make food processing less energy and carbon intensive. In this book chapter we would like to provide an overview of energy use and carbon footprint of different types of food industries. Quantification of CFP is generally done using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in which GHG emissions are measured from the very beginning of the production process to its final use and disposal. GHG emission from a food industry will include both direct emissions as well as indirect emissions. The CFP of different sectors like fruit and beverage industry, sugar production, dairy sector, fisheries, meat and poultry supply chains are presented. Apart from this, research gaps and possible steps to minimize the carbon footprint will be mentioned. Assessing the CFP of food industries can help in identifying the GHG sources and can be useful in developing alternative technologies which are more energy efficient and reduces GHG emission. Further, change in dietary pattern also contributes immensely to reduce the environmental impact of food consumption.

Major US electric utility climate pledges have the potential to collectively reduce power sector emissions by one-third

Energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from turf management of two Swedish golf courses

Better information on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and mitigation potential in the agricultural sector is necessary to manage these emissions and identify responses that are consistent with the food security and economic development priorities of countries. Critical activity data (what crops or livestock are managed in what way) are poor or lacking for many agricultural systems, especially in developing countries. In addition, the currently available methods for quantifying emissions and mitigation are often too expensive or complex or not sufficiently user friendly for widespread use.The purpose of this focus issue is to capture the state of the art in quantifying greenhouse gases from agricultural systems, with the goal of better understanding our current capabilities and near-term potential for improvement, with particular attention to quantification issues relevant to smallholders in developing countries. This work is timely in light of international discussions and negotiations around how agriculture should be included in efforts to reduce and adapt to climate change impacts, and considering that significant climate financing to developing countries in post-2012 agreements may be linked to their increased ability to identify and report GHG emissions (Murphy et al 2010, CCAFS 2011, FAO 2011).

Animal production is a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. One of the major challenges in sustainable management is to mitigate the effects of climate change by reducing GHG emissions. The diversity of animal production systems and accompanying diversification of technological processes, mean that specific production effects can be obtained at different levels of GHG emissions. The aim of the study was to determine the carbon footprint (CF) of beef cattle grown in a conventional system (i.e. indoor confinement). The research was carried out on the beef cattle farm belonging to a large-area enterprise, Długie Stare Ltd. The beef cattle production system consisted of the following subsystems: a basic breeding herd (consisting of suckler cows, replacement heifers and calves up to 6.5 months), breeding heifers, breeding bulls and fattening bulls. The method of life cycle analysis (LCA) in the stages from "cradle-to-farmgate" was used to assess the GHG emissions associated with the production of beef cattle. The average CF in the entire beef cattle production system was 25.43 kg of CO2 kg-1 of live weight of marketed cattle, while in the individual subsystems of basic breeding herd, breeding heifers, breeding bulls and fattening bulls, the CF (after GHG allocation) was: 11.0 kg CO2 eq., 34.30 kg CO2 eq., 27.32 and 25.40 kg CO2 eq., respectively. GHG emissions associated with young calves staying in the cow-calf pairs until weaning (in the period from 0-6.5 months), had a decisive influence on the final CF in each of the subsystems of beef cattle production. The second important factor directly affecting the CF was GHG emissions related to methane (CH4) enteric fermentation and manure management. Knowledge of factors affecting the CF structure allows better identification of critical areas in production processes with high GHG emission potential. Information on the CF of beef cattle and beef meat responds to a wider societal demand for the ecological characteristics of market products, which ultimately contributes to improving their market competitiveness.